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History    and    Philosophy 
// 


OF 


MARRIAGE; 

OR, 

POLYGAMY   AND   MONOGAMY 
COMPARED. 


BY    A    CHRISTIAN    PHILANTHROPIST. 


"  Jh&re  shall  be  no  widows  in  the  land,  for  I  will  marry  them  all;  there 
shall  be  no  orphans,  for  I  will  father  them  all."— OLD  PLAY. 


THIRD    EDITION,    REVISED   AND   ENLARGED. 


SAlvT  I^AKK  city: 

Jos.  Hyrum  F*ar.ry  &  Co., 


H  q  7  X9r 


Copyrighted,  1869,  by 
JAMES   CAMPBELL. 

transferred,  1884,  to 
JOS.    HYRUM   PARRY. 


BANCROFT 
UBRARY 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


This  little  book  disdains  disguise,  and  paints  humanity  as 
it  is.  As  the  artist  delineates  the  exact  forms  of  Nature, 
although  his  living  models  are  never  perfect,  either  in  feature 
or  in  attitude,  so  should  the  moral  writer  portray  both  the 
beauiies  and  the  blemishes  of  social  life,  without  omitting 
even  those  which  are  most  repulsive.  It  is  an  axiom  of  pru- 
dence, never  to  shut  our  eyes  against  a  painful  truth,  but  to 
know  the  worst,  and  to  provide  for  it.  In  the  following  pages, 
I  have  depicted  some  of  the  evils  of  society,  but  only  in  order 
to  demonstrate  them  to  be  evils,  and  to  point  out  a  remedy 
for  them  which  is  desiral)le,  practicable,  and  beneficent. 
Some  eminent  critics  have  suggested  that  I  have  drawn  the 
picture  with  so  great  freedom  as  to  be  offensive,  especially  to 
the  ladies;  and  I  began  to  think  of  preparing  an  expurgated 
edition  for  their  reading,  which  should  advocate  the  same 
principles,  but  in  which  many  of  the  histoiioal  facts  upon 
which  those  principles  depend  should  be  suppressed.  Oa 
further  reflection,  however,  I  am  ashamed  to  have  yielded  to 
such  suggestions  even  fof  an  hour.  If  we  treat  the  sex  like 
fools,  and  they  submit  to  such  treatment,  neither  they  nor 
the  men  can  justly  complain  if  they  are  somewhat  foolish. 
It  is  a  just  cause  of  complaint  against  the  men,  that  they  have 
too  long  kept  the  women  in  sul)jection  and  ignorance ;  first 
withholdinjj:  from  them  the  key  of  knowledge,  and  then 
charging  them  with  incapacity  for  many  responsible  duties 
and  emi)loyments,  for  which  an  equal  share  of  knowledge 
would  have  qualified  them.  This  sin  shall  not  be  justly  im- 
puted to  ray  account.  I  cordially  welcome  them  to  every 
branch  of  learning  and  of  industry.  I  have  written  nothing 
that  I  shall  blush  to  have  my  sisters  or  my  daughters  read. 
I  blush  for  humanity  that  so  many  debasing  crimes  against 
the  laws  of  chastity  should  ever  be  committed ;  but  I  do  not 
blush  to  know  when  and  by  whom  they  have  been  committed, 
nor  to  know  what  are  their  terrible  cousequeaces.      This 


PREFACE   TO   THE  SECOND  EDITION'. 


knowledge  has  bcc  )mc  a  part  of  Imman  experience  and  his- 
tory, which  it  is  not  only  proper,  but  important,  for  every  one 
to  know;  for  tliis  knowledf^e  is  my  hcrita,G:e  and  my  chil- 
dren's hcritao^c,  tliat  we  may  take  warninj^  from  the  calamities 
of  others,  and  g:nard  ourselves  a'lainst  them. 

That  a  second  edition  should  be  called  for,  of  a  pbilosoplii- 
cal  treatise  so  generally  regarded  as  heterodox  in  its  social 
opinions,  and  so  avowedly  opposed  to  the  fashionable  vices 
and  prejudices  of  the  times,  is  a  sufficient  vindication  of 
the  importance  of  the  subject,  and  the  candor  of  the  public. 
The  author  ofratefully  aeknowledc^cs  his  obligations  to  those 
gentlemen  of  "the  prc<s  who  have  condescen<led  to  notice  the 
work.  These  notices,  some  extracts  from  which  are  appended 
to  this  edition,  are  all  that  could  b3  expected.  While  most 
of  the  reviewers  are  very  conservative  upon  the  main  (question, 
they  very  generally  express  some  gi-aceful  compliments  to 
the  author's  earnestness  and  ability,  which  are  equally  credita- 
ble to  him,  and  honorable  to  them.  Some  have  given  a  full 
analysis  of  the  argument,  and  done  ample  justice  to  the 
work;  some  have  condemned  it  without  reading  it;  and  a 
few  have  made  the  most  gross  misstatements  of  its  scope 
and  design.  There  his  been  much  contradiction,  but  no  re- 
butting testimony.  Not  one  historical  or  statistical  fact  stated 
in  the  book  has  been  disproved,  not  one  proposition  claimed 
to  be  demonstrated  has  been  shown  to  he  fallacious.  The 
jonly  critique  worthy  of  reply  is  from  the  pen  of  J.  A.  H., 
Esq.,  of  Springfield,  Mass.,  which  is  quoted  in  full  in  this 
edition,  with  the  author's  reply;  and  each  one  can  now  judge 
for  himself  of  tie  merits  of  the  respective  arguments.  Some 
other  additions  to  this  edition  will  further  enhance  the  value 
of  the  work. 


OOlSTTEIirTS. 


CHAPTER   I.  — INTKODUCTORY. 


Audi  Alteram  Partem 
Some  Account  of  the  Author  . 
"What  Missionaries  say  of  Polygamy 
The  Indian  Chief  and  his  two  Wives 
My  Reflections  upon  this  Report    . 
Wljy  I  have  written  this  Book 
Laws  of  God  and  Nature  defined  . 


PAOB. 
9 

14 
17 
20 
21 
23 
25 


CHAPTER  II.  —  Primary  Laws  of  Love. 

Love  like  Electricity 28 

Love  refines  and  ennobles        . 30 

Love  inherent  to  all  .        .        .        .        , 32 

Love  is  the  Right  of  all 36 

Love  must  be  limited  by  Chastity 37 

Marriage  constitutes  the  Proi^er  Limit  ......  38 

CHAPTER  m.  — Primary  Laws  or  Marriage. 

Marriage  defined       .        , 40 

Marriage  beneficial .  41 


CONTENTS, 


All  are  entitled  to  Its  Benefits 
These  are  denied  to  many 
More  Women  than  Men  . 
Women  mature  earlier  than  Men 
Many  Men  refuse  to  marry 
Few  Women  decline  Marriage 
Monogamj'^  prevents  Marriage 
The  Marriage  Ceremony  . 


42 
44 
45 

49 
50 
61 
53 
65 


CIIAPTER  IV.  — Origi?j  of  Polygajit. 

Prejudices  to  be  overcome ,       ,  57 

Polygamy  is  not  Barbarism 58 

Why  Ood  made  but  one  Woman 62 

Polygamy  taught  in  the  Bible 63 

Monogamy  of  Bishops  and  Deacons       ......  71 

Dr.  McKnight's  Commentary 72 

Polygamy  approved  of  God    ........  76 


CHAPTER  v.  — Origin  of  Monogamy. 

Monogamy  the  Daughter  of  Paganism  and  Romanism        •        .  78 

Impurity  of  Greek  an.i  Roman  Morals 79 

Ancient  Roman  Marriages  not  Permanent 81 

Consequences  of  their  Frequent  Divorces     ,        .        .        ,        .  82 

Monogamy  and  Private  Life  of  the  Caesars 84 

Julius  Caesar .88 

Augustus 91 

Tiberius 98 

Caligula 102 

Claudius     .        .        .     '  .        .    ' 106 

Nero 112 


CONTENTS.  7 

CHAPTER  VI.  —  Monogamy  after  the  Introduction  of 
Christianttt. 

Gnosticism  in  the  First  Century 122 

Gnosticism  and  Platonism  of  the  Second  Century       ,        ,        ,124 

Monogamy  and  Christianity  in  the  Third  and  Fourth  Centuries.  127 

Constantine  and  Theodosius ,        .  129 

Asceticism  and  Monasticisra    ,        .        .        .        .     -  .        .        .  131 

Mediaeval  Superstition  and  Immorality 133 

Immutahiiity  of  the  Roman  Church 136 


CHAPTER  Vn.— MoNor.AMT  as  tt  Is. 

Monogamy  is  Romanism  still  ..•..•..  144 

Impurity  of  Modern  Monogamy 151 

The  Higher  Law  of  Christian  Charity 153 

Is  the  "  Social  Evil  "  preventible  ? 156 

Monogamy  occasions  Seduction  and  Ruin 159 

The  Harlot's  Progress 163 

Monogamy  causes  Religion  to  be  hated 166 

Great  Men  are  always  Polygamista 172 

Hypocrisy  of  Monogamy         ....,.,.  175 


CHAPTER  Vni.  —  Relation  of  Monogamy  to  Crime. 

Marriage  prevents  Crime  .       ,              ,  178 

Adultery 180 

Murder 186 

Divorce .  189 

Procuring  Abortion 194 

Fecundity  ought  to  be  promoted 199 

Birth-Rate  in  Massachusetts    ...,,«..  9H 


8  CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER  IX.  — Objections  to  PoLrcAMY. 

Docs  Polygamy  cause  Jealousy  ? 208 

Is  Polygamy  degrading  ? 209 

Women's  Rights 210 

Masculine  Power  and  Feminine  Complaisance     ....  213 

May  Women  have  a  Plurality  of  Ilusbands  ?       .        .        ,        .  216 

Marriage  like  the  Law  of  Gravitation    .        .        .        ,        .        .  217 

Masculine  Responsibility  and  Care        ......  J18 


APPENDIX.— Notices  and  Reviews. 

Rev.  Dr.  Martin  Madan's  "  Thclyphthora  " 224 

Lecky's  "  History  of  European  Morals  " 230 

Lea's  "Historical  Sketch  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy"      .        .        .252 
Conyhcare  and  Howson's  Note  :n  "  the  One  Wife  "  of  a  Bishop    253 


THE    HISTORY 
PHILOSOPHY   OF   MAKRIAGE. 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

AUDI    ALTERAM    PARTEM. 

Philosophy  takes  nothing  for  granted.  It 
doubts  all  things  that  it  may  prove  all  things. 
The  marriage  question  is  a  proper  subject  of 
philosophical  inquiry,  involving  an  examination 
and  analysis  of  both  polygamy  and  monogamy. 
Of  the  latter  form  of  marriage  the  Christian 
world  has  known  too  much,  and  of  the  former  too 
little,  to  have  felt,  hitherto,  the  need  of  any  analysis 
of  either.  We  have  inherited  our  monogamy,  or 
the  marriage  system  which  restricts  each  man  to 
one  wife  only,  and  have  practised  it  as  a  matter  of 


10  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

course,  without  any  special  examination  or  inquiry  : 
so  that  we  really  know  but  little  concerning  its 
origin  or  its  early  history ;  while  we  know  still 
less  of  the  system  of  polygamy.  We  read  some- 
thing of  it  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  history  of 
Eastern  nations,  and  we  learn  something  more  from 
the  reports  of  modern  travellers  ;  and  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  what  we  know  of  it  has  come  to  us 
in  such  a  form  as  to  prejudice  our  minds  against 
it.  This  prejudice  is  unfavorable  to  a  just  and 
candid  philosophical  inquiry  ;  and  while  pursuing 
this  inquiry,  let  us  hold  this  prejudice  in  abeyance. 
Let  us  not  forget  that  what  we  have  seen  of  this 
system  is  in  its  most  unfavorable  aspects.  Most 
travellers  carry  their  native  prejudices  abroad,  and 
look  upon  the  customs  of  distant  countries  with 
less  astonishment  than  contempt.  And  they  re- 
member, when  writing  up  their  accounts  of  those 
countries,  that  their  books  are  made  to  be  sold  at 
hom.e ;  and  they  must  not  institute  comparisons 
unfavorable  to  their  own  land,  but  must  flatter  the 
conceit  of  their  fellow-countrymen  by  assuring 
them  that  their  own  social  and  political  institu- 
tions are  vastly  better  than  those  of  other  lands. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  11 

So,  also,  with  history :  it  presents  human  affairs 
in  a  perspective  view,  painting  its  roughest  moun- 
tains with  distinct  exactness,  but  casting  its  peace- 
ful plains  quite  into  the  shade.  It  devotes  a  hun- 
dred pages  to  the  details  of  wars  and  intrigues, 
illustrating  the  crimes  of  men,  in  proportion  to  a 
single  page  of  descriptions  of  common  life  and  do- 
mestic tranquillity,  illustrating  their  virtues. 

If  the  writer,  on  the  contrary,  shall  seem  preju- 
diced in  favor  of  polygamy,  let  it  be  attributed  to 
his  love  of  fair  play,  and  his  desire  to  let  both 
sides  be  heard,  rather  than  to  any  undue  bias  of 
mind  preventing  him  from  doing  equal  justice  to 
the  arguments  in  favor  of  either  system. 

It  is  attested  and  proved  by  competent  authority, 
which  no  one  doubts,  that  polygamy,  or  that  social 
system  which  permits  a  plurality  of  wives,  has 
always  prevailed  in  most  countries  and  in  all  ages 
of  the  world,  from  time  immemorial  ;  but  this 
form  of  marriage,  being  foreign  to  the  customs  of 
modern  Europe  and  her  colonies  in  America,  is 
very  naturally  regarded  throughout  these  enlight- 
ened regions  as  something  heathenish  and  barba- 
rous.    And  modern  writers,  whose  works  are  the 


12  HISTORY  AND  PniLOSOPHT 

exponents  of  European  civilization,  have  hitherto 
said  every  thing  against  it,  and  nothing  for  it. 
But  they  have  condemned  it  almost  without  ex- 
amination or  debate,  rather  because  it  is  strange 
than  because  they  have  proved  it  to  be  at  fault. 
No  one  has  given  to  the  subject  the  time  and  re- 
search necessary  to  its  fair  elucidation.  But  as  a 
venerable  institution  the  social  system  of  polygamy 
does  not  deserve  such  supercilious  treatment. 
Such  treatment,  besides  being  unjust,  is  unphilosoph- 
ical,  and  unworthy  a  liberal  and  an  enlightened 
age.  Its  great  antiquity  alone  should  entitle  it  to 
sufficient  respect  to  be  heard,  at  least,  in  its  own 
defence.  It  constitutes  an  important  part  of  hu- 
man history.  It  is  a  great  fact  that  cannot  be 
ignored ;  and  as  such,  it  must  be  studied  and 
known.  To  insist  upon  the  condemnation  of  this 
system,  without  hearing  its  defence,  is  oppression. 
It  is  even  the  worst  kind  of  oppression  ;  for,  in  such 
case,  it  must  be  allied  with  ignorance  and  bigotry. 
But  if  there  ever  was  a  time,  when  polygamy 
could  properly  be  thrust  aside  with  a  sneer,  and  it 
was  satisfactory  to  Christian  justice  to  condemn  it 
unheard  and  unexamined,  it  can  be  so  no  longer ; 


Ot'  MAUntAGE.  13 

for,  with  the  genera,!  diffusion  of  knowledge  and 
the  increased  facilities  of  modern  intercourse,  onr 
speculative  inquiries  are  seeking  a  range  of  cos- 
mopolitan extent,  and  we  are  brought  into  daily 
contact  with  the  opinions  and  the  practices  of  the 
antipodes.  If  we  disapprove  of  tlieir  practices  we 
shouhl  be  prepared  to  make  substantial  objections 
to  them  ;  and  if  we  wish  to  teach  them  our  own, 
Ave  should  be  able  to  give  equally  substantial  rea- 
sons. If  the  advocates  of  polygamy  arc  in  the 
minority  in  the  Christian  world,  let  the  common 
rights  of  the  minority  be  granted  them,  —  free<lom 
of  debate  and  the  privilege  of  protest  ;  and  let 
their  solemn  protest  be  listened  to  with  respect, 
and  be  spread  upon  the  current  records  of  the 
day.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  those  who  prac- 
tise this  ancient  system  do  constitute  the  majority 
of  mankind,  it  cannot  be  either  uninteresting  or 
unimportant  to  inquire  what  has  made  it  so  nearly 
universal,  and  caused  it  to  be  adopted  by  so  many 
different  nations,  and  even  different  races  of  men, 
among  whom  are,  no  doubt,  some  persons  who  are 
justly  distinguished  for  their  wisdom,  their  piety, 
and  their  humanity. 


14  IIISTOPiY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

The  writer  is  not  aware  that  any  former  attempt 
has  been  made  in  this  country  to  analyze  and 
explain  the  social  system  of  polygamy,  or  that 
any  works  written  abroad  for  this  purpose  have 
ever  been  current  here  ;  at  least,  he  has  not  been 
able  to  obtain  any,*  and  thus  to  avail  himself 
of  their  assistance.  While,  therefore,  the  subject- 
matter  of  this  essay  is  of  the  most  venerable  anti- 
quity, the  manner  of  its  discussion  must  be  entirely 
new  ;  and  not  only  can  the  author  claim  the  singu- 
lar merit  of  origiuality,  but  the  reader  can  be 
assured  of  the  no  less  singular  zeat  of  novelty. 

SOME    ACCOUNT   OF   THE   AUTIIOK. 

Almost  everybody  who  takes  up  a  new  book  is 
curious  to  know  somethiug  of  the  writer ;  of  his 
special  qualifications  for  his  work,  of  his  opportu- 
nities of  acquiring  a  thorough  knowledge  of  his 
subject,  and  of  the  standpoint  from  which  he  views 
it.  He  will,  therefore,  proceed  at  once  to  give  some 
account  of  himself,  and  how  he  came  to  write  this 
work.  And  the  courteous  reader  will  now  please 
permit  him  to  drop  the  indirect  style  of  address  so 

♦  See  Appendix. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  15 

common  among  writers,  and  to  introduce  himself 
by  speaking  in  the  first  person.  I  am  a  native  of 
New  England,  and  was  brought  up  a  strict  Puritan. 
My  father  always  declared  his  intention  to  educate 
me  for  the  law,  and  I  took  to  learning  as  readily 
as  most  boys  of  my  age.  I  was  graduated  from 
college  almost  forty  years  ago,  and  had  nearly 
completed  my  professional  studies,  when  my  health 
suddenly  broke  down  ;  and  I  then  discovered  that 
I  had  been  bestowing  all  my  care  upon  the  improve- 
ment of  the  mind,  to  the  total  neglect  of  the  health- 
fulness  of  the  body.  And  this,  I  fancy,  was  only  a 
common  defect  at  that  time,  in  our  American,  or, 
at  least,  our  New-England,  system  of  education. 
The  physicians  having  prescribed  a  voyage  at  sea 
and  a  residence  of  some  months  in  a  tropical 
climate,  the  influence  of  my  friends  obtained  a  for- 
eign situation  for  me  in  one  of  our  Boston  houses 
having  an  extensive  business  in  India ;  and  I  be- 
came their  clerk,  and  afterwards  their  factor.  The 
engagements  then  entered  into  could  not  easily  be 
broken  off,  and  I  have  continued  in  them  many 
years  ;  and  having  seen  all  the  continents  of  the 
globe,   and  many  islands  of  the  sea,  and  having 


16  nnroRt  and  iniiLosornY 

observed  human  society  iu  every  climate  and  in 
every  social  condition,  I  have  at  length  retnrned  to 
my  native  land,  an  older,  and,  1  hope,  a  wiser  man. 
Having  become  an  active  member  of  the  church  in 
my  youth,  I  did  not  renounce  my  Christian  charac- 
ter abroad,  but  have  always  afforded  such  encoiu*- 
agement  and  assistance  as  I  was  able,  to  our  Ameri- 
can and  English  missionaries,  whenever  I  fell  in 
with  them.  In  fact,  I  had  long  cherished  a  pro- 
found respect  and  admiration  for  the  missionary 
enterprise  ;  and,  notwithstanding  my  father's  wish 
to  educate  me  for  the  la\y,  I  had,  during  my  course 
of  study,  seriously  offered  myself  as  a  candidate  for 
missionary  labor  ;  and,  had  I  been  deemed  worthy 
of  that  honor,  I  should,  no  doubt,  have  devoted  my 
life  to  that  service.  But  Providence  did  not  so 
order  it.  Yet  when  I  went  abroad,  my  early  predi- 
lections easily  reconciled  me  to  the  pain  of  leav- 
ing my  native  land,  to  the  disappointment  which  I 
experienced  in  renouncing  a  career  of  professional 
and  literary  honors,  and  readily  introduced  me  to 
the  society  of  those  devoted  missionaries  whom  I 
would  fain  have  chOsen  for  my  fellow-laborers 
aud  life-companions.     I  was  very  much  surprised, 


OF  MAIilitAGJS,  17 

however,  soon  after  my  first  acquaintance  with 
them,  to  learn  that,  under  certain  circumstances, 
they  allowed  the  members  of  the  native  Christian 
churches  a  plurality  of  wives.  As  I  had  been 
educated  a  strict  monogamist,  in  New  England,  I 
had  never  once  dreamed  that  any  other  social  sys- 
tem than  monogamy  could  be  possible  among 
Christian  people,  anywhere ;  and  I  remonstrated 
with  the  missionaries  for  permitting  polygamy 
among  their  converts,  under  any  circumstances 
whatever. 

WHAT    THE    MISSIONARIES    SAY    ABOUT    POLYGAMY. 

I  was  answered  by  them  that  the  Bible  has  not 
forbidden  it,  but,  on  the  contrary,  has  recognized 
it,  as  sometimes  lawful  and  proper  ;  and  although 
they  themselves  did  not  encourage  it,  they  could 
not  positively  prohibit  it.  I  then  endeavored  to  recol- 
lect some  prohibition  in  the  Bible,  but  could  ueither 
recollect  nor  find  one  there.  On  the  contrary,  to  my 
own  astonishment,  after  a  careful  examination  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  I  did  find  therein  many  things 
to  favor  it.  The  missionaries  al.«o  said  that  their 
experience  had  taught  them  that  the   converting 


18  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

grace  of  God  was  granted  to  those  living  in  polyg- 
amy as  often  as  to  others ;  the  natives  themselves 
attach  no  moral  reproach  to  it ;  "  and,"  said  the 
missionaries,  ''  if  such  persons  give  evidence  of 
genuine  conversion,  '  Can  any  man  forbid  water, 
that  they  should  not  be  baptized,  who  have  received 
the  grace  of  God  as  well  as  we?'  Besides," 
they  added,  "  if  they  are  not  received  and  recog- 
nized as  Christians,  how  shall  we  dispose  of  them? 
Shall  we  refuse  them  our  fellowship,  and  send 
them  back  again  to  their  idolatry?  This  would  be 
no  less  unchristian  than  unkind.  Shall  we  compel 
them  to  put  away  all  their  wives,  but  those  first 
married,  and  then  receive  them  into  the  church? 
But  in  many  cases  this  would  be  impracticable,  in 
others  unjust,  in  all  cruel.  For  the  chastity  of  the 
women  hitherto  irreproachable  would  be  tarnished 
by  their  repudiation  :  they  would  often  be  left  with- 
out a  home  and  without  support ;  and,  like  other  dis- 
graced and  destitute  women  of  all  lands,  they  would 
be  thrust  upon  a  life  of  infamy  and  vice.  Who," 
continued  they,  "  shall  dare  assume  the  responsi- 
bility of  separating  wife  from  husband,  and  children 
from  parents?  since  the  Bible  expressly  forbids  a 


OF  MARRIAGE,  19 

man  to  divorce  his  wife,  for  any  cause,  except 
unfaithfulness  to  her  marriage  vow:  God  is  not 
said  in  the  Bible  to  hate  polygamy,  but  it  says 
there  that  '  he  hateth  putting  away.'  " 

I  need  not  say  that  I  was  completely  disarmed 
and  silenced  by  this  array  of  "  the  law  and  the  tes- 
timony ;  "  and  was  compelled,  by  their  arguments, 
to  admit  that  their  course  was  one  of  equal  justice 
and  mercy.  I  soon  learned,  however,  that  the  rules 
of  the  missionaries  are  by  no  means  uniform  upon 
this  question.  Many  of  them,  particularly  those 
who  possess  a  great  regard  for  the  authority  and 
the  dogmas  of  the  church,  and  who  reason  rather 
from  the  "  tradition  of  the  elders,"  than  fi'om  the 
laws  of  Nature  or  of  God,  have  rigidly  enforced 
monogamy  among  their  converts  ;  and  if  any  one 
becomes  a  Christian  while  living  in  polygamy,  such 
missionaries  require  him  to  repudiate  all  his  wives 
but  one.  It  was  not  many  months  after  the  conver- 
sation above  related  that  one  of  the  missionaries 
called  my  attention  to  a  religious  journal  that  he 
had  just  received  from  Boston,  containing  the  report 
of  certain  missionaries  among  the  North-American 
Indians,  giving  an  account  of  the  conversion  of  an 
old  and  influential  chief. 


20  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

THE   INDIAN   CHIEF   AND   HIS   TWO   WIVES. 

This  chief  at  the  time  of  his  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity was  living  with  two  wives.  The  one  first 
married  was  now  aged,  blind,  and  childless.  The 
other  was  young,  attractive,  healthful,  and  the 
mother  of  one  fine  boy.  One  of  these  wives  the 
missionaries  required  him  to  put  away,  as  an  indis- 
pensable requisite  to  baptism  and  church-member- 
ship. The  old  chief,  after  careful  deliberation, 
could  not  decide  which  one  to  repudiate.  The  first 
he  was  bound  by  every  honorable  motive  ''  to  love 
and  to  cherish,"  especially  on  account  of  her  age 
and  infirmity ;  while  the  other  was  devotedly  at- 
tached to  him,  and  was  the  mother  of  his  only  child 
and  heir,  which  he  could  not  give  up,  and  from 
which  he  could  not  separate  the  mother.  He,  there- 
fore, submitted  the  case  to  the  missionaries  to  de- 
cide which  one  of  them  he  should  put  away.  They 
decided  against  the  younger  one.  And  as  he  was 
old  himself  and  his  other  wife  was  barren,  that  she 
must  also  give  up  her  child.  This  mandate  was 
obeyed  with  martyr-like  fortitude,  which  nothing  but 
the  strongest  religious  motives  could  have  inspired ; 


OF   MARRIAGE.  21 

opposed,  as  it  was,  to  every  natural  sentiment  of 
love  and  honor.  And  thus,  in  one  hour,  was  that 
young  wife  and  mother  deprived  of  her  husband, 
her  child,  her  character,  and  her  home ;  and  sent 
away  a  bereaved  and  lonely  outcast  into  the  wide 
world.  The  report  which  the  missionaries  them- 
selves gave  of  this  affair  closed  by  saying  that  the 
repudiated  wife  and  bereaved  mother  soon  died  in- 
consolable and  broken-hearted. 

MY   OWN   REFLECTIONS   UPON   THIS   REPORT. 

On  reading  this  report,  I  could  not  forbear  con- 
trasting their  mode  of  treating  polygamy  with  that 
of  the  missionaries  in  the  East,  which  had  come 
under  my  own  observation  there,  and  which  I  had, 
at  first,  so  severely  criticised.  I  now  began  to  blush 
at  my  own  late  ignorance  and  bigotry.  And  the 
more  I  thought  of  the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  the 
North-American  missionaries,  the  higher  rose  my 
indignation  against  it.  I  could  not  fail  to  see  that 
their  narrow  attachment  to  their  own  social  system 
had  made  them  judicially  blind  to  the  merits  of  any 
other ;  and  that  they  were  more  ignorant  of  the 
true  spirit  of  Christianity  as  well  as  of  the  nat- 


22  HISTORY   A2^D    PHILOSOPHY 

ural  rights  of  man  concern  rag  the  laws  of  marriage, 
than  even  the  poor  savages  themselves.  Yet  they 
undouhtcdly  supposed  they  were  doing  God  essential 
service  hy  this  act  of  inhumanity  ;  just  as  our  fa- 
thers did  when  they  hanged  and  burned  honest  men 
because  they  worshipped  God  in  a  different  manner, 
and  entertained  different  views  of  divine  truth,  from 
themselves.  Their  mistake  is  one  which  has  always 
been  too  common,  and  from  which  no  one,  perhaps, 
is  altogether  free.  It  consists  in  assuming  that 
because  we  are  honest  in  our  belief,  and  mean  to  be 
right,  others  who  essentially  differ  from  us  are  dis- 
honest and  wrong  ;  and  in  presuming  to  judge  the 
conduct  of  others  by  what  we  fed  to  he  rights  i.e., 
by  our  own  standard  of  morality,  instead  of  judging 
them  by  what  we  hnow  to  he  rights  according  to  the 
infallible  standard  of  divine  truth. 

These  reflections  led  me  to  give  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  marriage,  in  respect  to  its  divine  and  nat- 
ural laws,  as  thorough  and  as  critical  an  investio^a- 
tiou  as  my  abilities  and  advantages  enabled  me  to 
do ;  and  to  inquire  into  the  origin  and  the  moral 
tendencies  of  the  two  social  systems  of  monogamy 
and  polygamy. 


OF  MABRIAGE.  23 

I  have  now  pursued  this  investigation  many  years, 
and  have  become  convinced  that  polygamy  is  not 
always  an  immorality ;  that  sometimes  a  man  may 
innocently  have  more  than  one  woman  ;  and  then 
that  it  is  their  right  to  be  married  to  him,  and  his 
duty  to  love  and  cherish  them  for  better  for  worse, 
for  richer  for  poorer,  in  sickness  and  in  health,  till 
death  shall  part  them. 

WHY   I   HAVE   WRITTEN  THIS   BOOK. 

I  am  unwilling  to  leave  the  world  without  hav- 
ing given  it  the  benefit  of  these  reflections.  All 
truth  is  important.  If  these  views  are  true,  they 
ought  to  be  known  ;  if  they  are  not  true  let  them  be 
refuted.  If  the  prejudices  of  modern  Christians 
are  opposed  to  the  social  system  which  their  ancient 
brethren,  the  earliest  saints  and  patriarchs,  prac- 
tised in  the  good  old  days  of  Bible  truth  and  pasto- 
ral simplicity,  I  believe  that  these  prejudices  are 
neither  natural  nor  inveterate  ;  but  that  they  have 
been  induced  by  the  corrupted  Christianity  of  the 
mediaeval  priesthood,  and  that  they  will  be  removed 
when  Christian  people  become  better  informed  ;  and 
if  it  be  necessary  for  me  to  sacrifice  my  own  ease 


24  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  my  own  credit,  in  attempting  to  remove  them, 
I  shall  only  suffer  the  common  lot  of  all  reformers  he- 
fore  me.  Yet  I  scarcely  expect  to  see  any  immediate 
result  of  my  labors.  It  is  a  melancholy  and  an  hu- 
miliating fact  that  the  opinions  of  most  people  are  de- 
termined more  by  what  others  around  them  think  and 
say  than  by  wliat  they  believe  themselves.  They  are 
not  accustomed  to  the  proper  exercise  of  their  own 
reason,  and  do  not  follow  the  convictions  of  their 
own  minds.  Yet  there  are  some  who  dare  to  think 
and  act  for  themselves  ;  and  into  the  hands  of  a  few 
such  I  doubt  not  these  pages  will  fall :  and  to  all 
such  I  most  heartily  commend  them.  To  an  active 
and  an  ingenuous  mind  there  is  no  pursuit  more 
fascinating  than  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  no  pleas- 
ure more  exquisite  than  the  discovery  of  truth.  All 
those  who  would  enjoy  this  pleasure  in  its  highest 
sense  must  love  Truth  for  herself  alone  ;  they  must 
emancipate  themselves  from  the  trammels  of  preju- 
dice and  public  opinion,  and  dare  to  follow  Truth 
wherever  she  may  lead.  And  I  make  no  further 
apology  for  calling  the  attention  of  an  intelligent 
age  to  a  new  examination  of  an  old  institution. 
Truth  dreads  no  scrutiny  ;  shields  herself  behind  UQ 


OF  MARRIAGE,  26 

breastwork  of  established  custom  or  of  respectable 
authority,  but  proudly  stands  upon  her  own  merits. 
I  will  not  despair,  therefore,  of  gaining  the  atten- 
tion of  every  lover  of  the  truth  while  I  attempt  to 
develop  and  demonstrate  the  laws  of  God  and  of 
nature  upon  the  important  subjects  of  love  and  mar- 
riage, and  to  apply  those  laws  to  the  two  systems 
of  monogamy  and  polygamy, 

THE  LAWS  OF  GOD  AND  OF  NATURE  ;  THE  TERMS 
DEFINED. 

To  prevent  misconception  of  the  meaning  in- 
tended to  be  conveyed  by  these  terms,  it  is  proper 
to  state,  that,  by  the  laws  of  God,  I  mean  the  writ- 
ten laws  contained  in  the  Holy  Bible  ;  which  I 
believe  to  be  the  most  perfect  revelation  of  the 
divine  will  and  God's  inestimable  gift  to  man. 
The  laws  by  which  the  universe  subsists,  embracing 
those  of  mind  as  well  as  those  of  matter,  are  un- 
doubtedly the  laws  of  God  also  ;  but  we  call  them, 
by  way  of  distinction,  the  laws  of  nature  ;  because 
it  is  only  by  a  diligent  study  of  nature,  and  by  rea- 
soning from  cause  to  effect  and  from  effect  to  cause, 
that  they  can  be  determined,  yet  when  determined 


26  mSTORY  AND  PIIILOSOFHY 

they  are  always  found  to  harmonize  with  each  other 
and  also  with  the  written  law,  which  they  may 
safely  and  properly  be  employed  to  illustrate  and 
explain. 

Both  these  classes  of  law  differ  materially  frOm 
the  civil  law,  or  the  laws  of  States  and  nations  ;  es- 
pecially in  these  respects :  the  former  are  always 
harmonious  with  each  other,  and  equally  valid  at 
all  times  and  places,  and  are,  therefore,  infallible 
and  unchangeable.  The  latter  are  always  conflict- 
ing with  and  often  contradictory  to  one  another ; 
and  are  constantly  being  altered,  amended,  and  re- 
pealed ;  and,  although  founded  upon  truth,  in  gen- 
eral, and  intended  for  the  public  good,  and  there- 
fore entitled  to  our  respect  and  obedience,  they  are 
so  only  in  a  qualified  sense,  far  inferior  to  that  pro- 
found respect  and  implicit  obedience  due  to  divine 
and  natural  law. 

In  my  analysis  of  the  laws  of  love  and  marriage 
on  which  depends  the  mutual  relation  of  the  two 
sexes,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  speak  of  that  relation 
with  unusual  familiarity  ;  even  though  I  may  some- 
times offend  our  modern  notions  of  modesty  and 
propriety  —  notions  which  I  shall  not  now  stop  to 


OF  MARRIAGE,  27 

discuss,  whether  they  be  true  or  false  ;  it  matters 
not.  Truth  rises  superior  to  every  consideration  of 
fastidiousness,  and  it  is  high  time  that  these  truths 
should  be  demonstrated.  Yet  it  shall  be  my  care 
so  to  treat  them  as  not  to  offend  true  modesty  un- 
necessarily :  j9wm  omnia  pura. 


KOTES  TO  THE   SECOND  EDITION. 

1.  The  term  "  monogamy  "  is  used  throughout  this 
volume  to  denote  enforced  or  restricted  monogamy^ 
or  the  system  which  allows  each  man  but  one  wife  ; 
and  a  monogamist  is  one  who  supports  this  system, 
whether  he  be  married  or  unmarried.  The  term 
''polygamy"  denotes  freedom  to  raarry  either  one 
wife  or  more;  and  a  polygamist  is  one  who  main- 
tains this  freedom,  whether  he  has  o-ne  wife  or 
many,  or  is  unmarried. 

2.  This  treatise  is  restricted,  as  its  former  title 
indicates,  to  the  liistory  and  philosophy  of  polygamy 
and  monogamy  exclusively  ;  and  attempts  no  dis- 
cussion of  any  other  form  of  marriage  so  called,  or 
of  any  other  social  system  whatever.  The  curious 
reader  will  find  many  important  facts  concerning 
the  history  of  marriage,  and  other  systems  of  social 
life,  in  a  new  and  valuable  work  entitled  "Medi- 
cal Common  Sense  and  Plain  Home  Talk."  By  E. 
B.  Foote,  M.D.,  120  Lexington  Avenue,  New 
York,  1870. 


28  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  PRIMARY  LAWS  OF  LOVE. 
LOVE    LIKE    ELECTIIICITY. 

Among  all  the  inherent  properties  of  mankind, 
none  is  more  important  than  that  of  love  ;  and  no 
one  more  clearly  evinces  the  wisdom  and  benevo- 
lence of  his  Creator.  Love,  in  its  primary  sense, 
to  which  it  will  be  restricted  in  this  treatise,  is  the 
mutual  attraction  of  the  two  sexes.  It  exists  in  all 
persons,  either  as  a  sensibility  or  a  passion.  It  is 
a  sensibility  when  in  a  state  of  rest,  or  when  exer- 
cised towards  the  whole  of  the  opposite  sex  indis- 
criminately ;  but  it  is  a  passion  when  strongly 
excited  and  when  exercised  towards  particular 
individuals.  And  it  is  as  truly  and  fundamentally 
a  law  of  human  nature  as  electricity  is  of  material 
nature,  —  to  which  it  bears  a  curious  analogy. 
\Ye  can  scarcely  reason  with  more  certainty  upon 


OF  MARRIAGE,  29 

the  laws  of  electricity  than  upon  those  of  love,  for 
we  have  the  assistance  of  consciousness  in  one  case 
which  we  want  in  the  other.  But  note  the  analogy  : 
it  has  been  demonstrated  that  all  bodies  possess 
electricity  in  a  greater  or  less  degree ;  and  that 
some  are  positive  when  compared  with  others,  and 
some  are  negative.  They  are  usually  at  rest ;  but 
when  two  bodies  of  different  electrical  states  ap- 
proach each  other,  they  at  once  become  highly 
excited,  and  continue  so  till  brought  in  contact 
with  each  other,  when  the  positive  charges  or  im- 
pregnates the  negative.  So  it  is  found  that  love 
exists  in  different  states  in  the  two  sexes,  and  in 
different  degrees  of  intensity  in  different  individuals 
of  the  same  sex.  Males  are  positive,  and  females 
negative ;  and  while  the  latter  differ  less  from 
each  other  than  the  former  do,  being  nearly  all  of 
them  susceptible  to  the  proper  proposals  of  genuine 
love,  yet  they  are  not  so  much  affected  by  sponta- 
neous passion  as  the  former  are,  who  usually  ex- 
perience it  with  great  intensity,  and  are  impelled 
to  make  the  first  advances.  But  there  are  always 
some  individuals  among  them  who  need  a  great 
deal  of  encouragement  before  they  will  advance 


30  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPnY 

and  propose  ;  and  others  who  are  almost  destitute 
of  the  common  sensibility  of  love,  and  who  will 
neither  make  proposals  nor  receive  them. 

LOVE   REFINES   AND    ENNOBLES. 

Love  sheds  on  earth  something  of  the  beauty 
and  the  light  of  heaven.  Love  develops  the  no- 
blest traits  of  humanity ;  and  often  brings  them 
out  from  those  persons  who  had  given  little  promise 
of  possessing  them,  until  they  were  brought  under 
the  influence  of  this  master  passion.  There  is 
nothing  so  great,  so  difficult,  or  so  self-sacrificing 
that  love  will  not  inspire  men  to  dare  and  to  do.  But 
it  is  not  more  in  splendid  achievements  or  wonder- 
ful adventures,  than  it  is  in  the  innumerable  little 
things,  which  conspire  to  make  up  the  happiness 
of  social  life,  that  the  greatest  victories  of  love  are 
won.  We  cannot  love  any  person,  without  seeking 
his  or  her  benefit ;  and  in  endeavoring  to  benefit  and 
please  the  object  of  our  affection,  we  are  impelled  to 
improve  and  beautify  ourselves,  in  order  to  become 
more  worthy  of  our  beloved  one's  affection  in  return. 
And  this  leads  us  not  only  to  adorn  our  persons 
but  to  polish  our  manners  and  cultivate  our  minds. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  81 

Hence,  we  are  deeply  indebted  to  this  sentiment 
for  those  qualities  of  mind  and  person  which  com- 
bine to  constitute  us  social  beings  ;  since  it  does 
not  more  certainly  impel  us  to  the  acquisition  of 
what  is  beautiful  and  becoming  in  dress  and  de- 
portment, than  to  the  attainment  of  intelligence 
and  politeness,  and  to  surround  ourselves  with  all 
the  embellishments  of  civilization.  Love  refines 
all  that  it  touches.  Under  its  influence  the  rough 
boy  becomes  the  respectful  young  gentleman,  and 
the  awkward  girl  assumes  the  innate  refinement  of 
the  lady.  Love  paints  the  cheek  with  roses,  adds 
new  lustre  and  intelligence  to  the  eye,  imparts 
strength  and  elasticity  to  the  step,  grace  and 
dignity  to  the  mien,  courage  to  the  heart,  elo- 
quence to  the  tongue,  and  poetry  to  every  thought. 
In  fact,  love  is  at  once  the  poetry  of  life,  and  the 
life  of  poetry.  Love  has  inspired,  in  every  age, 
the  brightest  dreams  of  fancy  and  the  noblest  con- 
ceptions of  literature  and  of  art,  constituting  the 
perpetual  theme  which  animates  the  writer's  pen 
and  tunes  the  poet's  lyre.  Love  reposes  in  the 
sculptor's  marble  ;  love  blushes  upon  the  painter's 
canvas.     And  all  these  various  embodiments  of 


32  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

love  by  literature  aod  art  are  universally  appre- 
ciated and  admired  ;  for  the  pen,  the  chisel,  and 
the  pencil  have  only  given  expression  to  the  gen- 
eral sentiment  of  mankind.  The  poet  and  the 
artist  have  only  wrought  out  what  every  one  else 
had  already  thought :  and  have  only  given  speech, 
form,  and  color  to  the  silent,  shadowy  images  of 
the  common  heart  of  man. 

LOTE   INHERENT    IN    ALL. 

That  the  language  of  love  is  universally  under- 
stood, and  that  its  varied  delineations  by  the  in- 
spiration of  art  are  always  and  everywhere  delight- 
fully recognized,  is  sufficient  proof  that  the  sentiment 
is  universally  experienced.  It  is  not  confined  to 
the  gifted,  the  highborn,  or  the  rich,  nor  is  it  pecu- 
liar to  any  period  of  the  world,  or  to  any  condition 
of  life.  All  have  possessed  the  sensibility,  if  they 
have  not  experienced  the  passion  ;  they  have  felt 
the  want  of  love,  if  they  have  not  enjoyed  its  frui- 
tion. 

It  is  our  birthright.  We  have  no  sooner  passed 
the  period  of  adolescence  than  we  inherit  the  pow- 
er and  the  inclination  to  love.     We  then  feel  an 


OF  MARRIAGE.  33 

instinctive  yearning  of  the  heart  for  a  kindred 
heart.  We  are  each  of  us  conscious  of  being  in- 
complete alone,  and  incapable  of  enjoying  alone 
our  fullest  happiness,  and  we  intuitively  seek  that 
happiness  by  linking  our  destiny  in  life  with  some 
dear  one  of  the  opposite  sex.  It  is  there  only  that 
our  natural  wants  can  be  supplied.  One  sex  is  the 
complement  of  the  other.  Each  is  imperfect  alone, 
and  each  supplies  what  the  other  lacks.  Self- 
reliant  as  man  may  suppose  himself  to  be,  yet  divine 
wisdom  has  said,  "  It  is  not  good  for  the  man  to  be 
alone  ;  "  he  needs  a  ''  helpmeet  "  in  woman.  Still 
less  is  it  good  for  the  woman  to  be  alone,  for  "  she 
w^as  created  for  the  man,"  and  every  woman  wants 
a  man  to  love  ;  for  love  is  her  life,  and  it  is  only 
while  she  loves,  or  hopes  to  love,  that  she  lives  to 
any  happy  or  useful  or  honest  purpose.  It  has  been 
said  that  as  woman  was  taken  out  of  man  in  her 
creation,  so  it  is  man's  instinctive  desire  to  seek  her 
and  to  reclaim  her  as  his  own  counterpart,  or  that 
portion  of  himself  Avliich  is  required  to  complete 
the  symmetry  of  his  nature  and  the  happiness  of 
his  life.  For  this  love  the  youthful  heart  longs  and 
^ines  until  it  attains  the  object  of  its  desires,  or 

8 


34  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPHT 

until  it  has  become  so  sordid,  so  hard,  and  so  profli- 
gate, as  to  be,  at  once,  unworthy  of  possessing  it, 
and  incapable  of  enjoying  it.  This  susceptibility 
of  the  youthful  heart  has  been  faithfully  portrayed 
hy  a  youthful  poet,  in  the  following  lines,  which 
are  at  once  recognized,  as  expressing  the  common 
sentiment  of  humanity :  — 

"  It  is  not  that  my  lot  is  low, 
That  bids  the  silent  tear  to  flow, 
It  is  not  grief  that  bids  me  moan, 
It  is  that  I  am  all  alone. 

In  woods  and  glens  I  love  to  roam, 
When  the  tired  hedger  hies  him  home  ; 
Or  by  the  woodland  pool  to  rest, 
When  pale  the  star  looks  on  its  breast. 

^  Yet  wlien  the  silent  evening  sighs. 

With  hallowed  airs  and  symphonies, 
My  spirit  takes  another  tone, 

'  And  sighs  that  it  is  all  alone. 

The  woods  and  winds  with  sudden  wail 
Tell  all  the  same  unvaried  tale ; 
I've  none  ta  smile  when  I  am  free. 
And  when  I  sigh,  to  sigh  with  me. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  36 

Yet  in  my  dreams  a  form  I  view. 
That  thinks  on  me  and  loves  me  too ; 
I  start !  and  when  the  vision's  flown, 

I  weep  that  I  am  all  alone." 

H.  K.  White. 

1 

Another  poet  has  expressed  the  same  sentiment 
in  the  following  impassioned  lines  :  — 

"  Give  me  but 
Something  whereunto  I  may  bind  my  heart ; 
Something  to  love,  to  cherish,  and  to  clasp 
Affection's  tendrils  round." 

Now,  if  any  one  should  be  inclined  to  call  all  this 
but  love-sick  sentimentality,  unworthy  our  serious 
consideration,  I  shall  only  answer  him  in  the  words 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  the  English  moralist :  "  We  must 
not  ridicule  the  passion  of  love,  which  he  who  never 
felt,  never  was  happy  ;  and  he  who  laughs  at  never 
deserves  to  feel,  —  a  passion  which  has  inspired 
heroism,  and  subdued  avarice ;  a  passion  which 
has  caused  the  change  of  empires,  and  the  loss  of 
worlds." 

Shall  these  heaven-born  impulses  of  nature  be 
regarded,  or  must  they  be  repressed?     Shall  we 


36  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHT 

permit  these  tendrils  of  our  love  to  bind  themselves 
around  some  kindred  heart,  or  shall  we  suffer  them 
to  be  rudely  torn  asunder,  and  cast  aside  to  wither 
and  decay?  Implanted  for  the  noblest  purposes 
within  our  breasts,  interwoven  with  the  very  fibres 
of  our  being,  the  laws  of  God  and  of  nature  un- 
questionably demand  their  indulgence. 

LOVE   IS   THE   RIGHT   OF   ALL. 

In  plainer  terms,  the  laws  of  God  and  of  nature 
clearly  indicate  that  every  man  and  every  woman, 
possessing  sufficient  health  and  vitality  to  experience 
the  passion  of  love,  is  benefited  by  its  proper  grati- 
fication ;  and  those  laws  both  allow  and  invite  every 
one  to  enjoy  it  in  its  full  fruition.  A  man  is  not 
wholly  a  man,  nor  a  woman  wholly  a  woman,  who 
has  never  experienced  the  ecstasies  of  gratified  love. 
And  those  men  and  women  who  are  spending  their 
most  vigorous  period  of  life  in  cold  and  barren 
celibacy,  without  ever  having  yielded  to  the  warm 
desires  of  reproduction,  are  living,  every  moment, 
in  debt  to  their  Creator  and  to  the  commonwealth 
of  mankind.  They  have  never  fulfilled  some  of 
t-he  most  important  purposes  of  their  being. 


OF  MAUniAGE,  37 

"  Torches  arc  made  to  li^ht,  jewels  to  wear, 
Dainties  to  taste,  fresh  beauty  for  the  use, 
Herbs  for  their  smell,  and  sappy  plants  to  bear ; 
Things  growing  to  themselves  are  growth's  abuse : 

Seeds  spring  from  seeds,  and  beauty  breedeth  beauty. 

Thou  wast  begot —  to  get  it  is  thy  duty. 

Upon  the  earth's  increase  why  shouldst  thou  feed, 
Unless  the  earth  with  thy  increase  be  fed "? 
By  law  of  Nature  thou  art  bound  to  breed, 
That  thine  may  live,  when  thou  thyself  art  dead  ; 

And  so  in  spite  of  death  thou  dost  survive. 

In  that  thy  likeness  still  is  left  alive." 

Shakspeare  (Venus  and  Adonis). 

LOVE  MUST  BE    RESTRICTED   WITHIN   THE    LIMITS    OP 
CHASTITY. 

Tet  meu  and  women  must  not  rush  into  sensual 
pleasure  like  brutes,  for  we  are  moral  beings,  as 
well  as  corporeal  beings,  and,  as  such,  the  subjects 
of  moral  law,  which  requires  us  to  govern  our 
passions,  and  circumscribe  them  within  the  limits 
of  purity.  But,  even  in  this  respect,  there  is  no 
real  disagreement  between  the  laws  of  morality 
and  those  of  Nature :  when  they  are  properly  un- 
derstood, they  are  each  equally  explicit  in  forbid- 
ding every  form  of  licentious  impurity.     The  most 


88  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

loathsome  and  incurable  diseases  are  the  penalties 
imposed  by  natural  law,  and  the  severest  retribu- 
tions of  eternity,  the  penalties  imposed  by  divine 
law,  upon  the  promiscuous  and  unrestrained  in- 
dulgence of  the  amorous  propensity.  Nor  are  these  j 
penalties  unnecessary.  No  passion  of  our  nature  ( 
is  more  vehement,  and  no  one  more  liable  to  be  s 
tempted  and  led  astray  from  the  path  of  rectitude  ; 
and  we  should,  therefore,  attend  the  more  carefully 
to  those  laws  and  limitations  which  God  and 
Nature  have  imposed  upon  its  indulgence.  And  I 
cannot  doubt  that  they  have  limited  its  indulgence 
strictly  to  the  marriage  relation.  Some  well- 
defined  limit  tliere  must  be  between  chastity  and 
unchastity,  and  vice  and  virtue,  or  else  the  laws 
which  define  them  and  which  punish  transgressors 

must  be  unjust  and  oppressive. 

I 
i 

MARRIAGE   CONSTITUTES    THAT   LIMIT. 

Here  there  is  no  oppression  and  no  injustice. 
Everybody  is  born  with  a  propensity  to  love,  and 
everybody  that  is  willing  to  marry  may  marry,  and 
indulge  that  propensity  in  innocence  and  purity. 
Within  this  limit  the  o^ratification  of  love  affords 


OF  MARlilAGE.  b9 

us  tlid  most  exquisite,  pleasure,  promotes  health, 
conduces  to  lougcvity,  and  is  entirely  consistent 
with  the  rules  of  morality  and  religion.  But  when 
it  oversteps  this  limit  prescribed  by  our  Creator, 
and  bursts  the  barriers  of  chastity,  it  then  assumes 
the  form  of  unprincipled  lust,  and  inflicts  upon  its 
miserable  votaries  the  utmost  torture  of  body, 
degradation  of  mind,  and  remorse  of  conscience. 

''  Marriage  is  honorable  in  all,  and  the  bed  un* 
defiled  ;  but  whoremongers  and  adulterers  God  will 
judge."  —  Heb.  xiii.  4. 

"  Hail  wedded  love,  mysterious  law,  true  source 
Of  human  offspring,  sole  propriety, 
In  Paradise,  of  all  things  common  else. 
By  thee  adulterous  lust  was  driven  from  man, 
Among  the  bestial  herd  to  range ;  by  theo 
Founded  in  reason,  loyal,  just,  and  pure 
Relations  dear  and  all  the  charities 
Of  father,  son,  and  brother  first  were  known. 
Far  be  it,  that  I  should  write  thee  sin  or  blame ;  , 

Or  think  thee  unbefitting  holiest  place; 
Perpetual  fountain  of  domestic  sweets. 
Whose  bed  is  undefiled  and  chaste  pronounced. 
Present  or  past,  as  saints  and  patriarchs  used. 
Here  Love  his  golden  shafts  employs,  here  lights 
His  constant  lamp,  and  waves  his  purple  wings." 

Paradise  Lost.  Book  iv. 


40  mSTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPJIY 


CHAPTER  III. 

l»RIMxVUY  LAWS  OF  MARRIAGE. 

Since  the  infallible  and  unchangeable  laws  of 
God  and  of  Nature  have  limited  the  indulgence  of 
love  to  married  persons  only,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  inquire  into  the  laws  and  limitations  of  mar- 
riage itself.  What  is  marriage  ?  and  who  are  en- 
titled to  its  rights  and  benefits  ? 

MARRIAGE   DEFINED. 

The  propfer  definition  of  marriage  is  the  main 
point  at  issue  between  the  social  system  of  polyga- 
my and  that  of  monogamy,  which  it  is  the  object 
of  this  treatise  to  examine  and  compare.  One 
system  defines  marriage  to  be  the  exclusive  union 
of  one  man  to  one  woman  until  separated  by  death 
or  divorce  ;  the  other  defines  it  to  be  the  union  of 
one  man  to  either  one  woman  or  more,  until  sepa- 
rated, in  like  manner,  by  death  or  divorce. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  41 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  determine  which  of 
these  defiuitions  is  most  in  harmony  with  the  laws 
of  God  and  of  Nature.  And  we  shall  be  better 
able  to  do  this,  by  considering  carefully  tlie  benefi- 
cent purposes  which  marrfage  is  designed  to  sub- 
serve. 

MARRIAGE   BENEFICIAL. 

Marriage  is  the  first  and  best  of  all  human  insti- 
tutions, if  it  can  properly  be  called  human,  since  it 
was  first  solemnized  in  Paradise,  by  the  Creator 
himself,  who  then  said,  "*  It  is  not  good  that  the 
man  should  be  alone  ;  I  will  make  him  a  help  meet 
for  him."  And  he  made  a  woman,  and  brought  her 
unto  the  man.  "  And  God  blessed  them,  and 
God  said  unto  them,  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and 
replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it." 

It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  all  the  benefits  of 
marriage,  since  there  is  no  vital  interest  of  man- 
kind which  it  does  not  affect  favorably.  Marriage 
perpetuates  the  human  race ;  lays  the  foundations 
of  organized  society ;  promotes  industry ;  accu- 
mulates AVealth  ;  cultivates  the  arts,  and  maintains 
religion.      It    builds    the    house,    tills    the    soil, 


42  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

supports  the  family,  and  fosters  every  charitable 
and  benevolent  enterprise. 

ALL   ARE   ENTITLED    TO   ITS   BENEFITS. 

As  the  word  of  God  has  declared  marriage  to 
be  honorable  in  all,  so  we  must  infer  that  his 
laws  have  made  provision  for  the  honorable  mar- 
riage of  all ;  and  that  every  person  of  each  sex 
is  equally  entitled  to  its  rights  and  benefits. 
These  rights  should  no  more  be  restricted  to  the 
rich  and  the  fortunate  than  are  the  susceptibilities 
of  love,  upon  which  marriage  properly  depends, 
and  from  which  it  derives  its  only  proper  warrant 
and  authority. 

"  Love,  and  love  only,  is  the  loan  for  love/* 

Marriage,  when  authorized  and  warranted  by 
the  promptings  of  an  honest  love,  is  a  pure  and 
blissful  consummation  of  all  that  is  divine  in 
humanity ;  but  when  it  is  contracted  from  mer- 
cenary or  ambitious  motives,  it  becomes  a  most 
unholy  profanation.  Love  was  not  made  for 
marriage,  but  marriage  for  love.  Love  is  an 
inherent  and  a  necessary  attribute  of  humanity ; 


OF  MARRIAGE,  48 

marriage  a  subsequent  relationship  instituted  to 
minister  to  love's  Avants.  Love  is  the  mistress, 
marriage  the  handmaid.  Marriage  must  wait 
the  demands  of  love,  and  not  love  the  demands  of 
marriage.  It  is,  therefore,  equally  disrespectful 
to  our  Creator,  and  dishonorable  to  man,  to  require 
that  love  should  be  suppressed  because  marriage 
is  inconvenient,  and  still  more  dishonorable  and 
disrespectful  to  require  any  one  to  be  deprived  of 
the  rights  of  love  on  account  of  the  impossibility 
of  marriage ;  for  marriage  ought  to  be  possible  to 
all.  If  love  be  refining  and  ennobling,  if  it  be 
the  spontaneous,  instinctive  birthright  of  all,  and 
if  our  Creator  has  restricted  its  indulgence  to  the 
marriage  relation,  then  marriage  must  be  the 
right  of  all,  or  else  God  is  not  a  benevolent  being. 
But  all  nature  and  all  revelation  have  demon- 
strated that  he  is  a  benevolent  being,  and  it  is 
both  impious  and  absurd  to  believe  that  his  laws 
have  made  no  /idequate  provision  for  every  one  to 
be  married  who  wishes  to  be.  We  may  waive 
our  rights,  and  live  in  celibacy,  if  we  prefer 
to ;  but  no  one  who  loves  and  who  wishes  to 
marry  ought  to  be  compelled  to  remain  unmarried. 


a  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

It  is,  thei^fore,  demonstrated  tliat  any  form  of 
society  which  fails  to  provide  for  the  marriage  of 
all  is  a  defective  system,  and  opposed  to  the  nat- 
ural, inherent,  and  inalienable  rights  of  man. 

THESE   RIGHTS   ARE   DENIED    TO   MANY. 

Yet  we  well  know  that  there  are  very  many 
persons,  especially  many  women,  who  are  neither 
married  nor  have  an  opportunity  to  marry.  By 
some  means  they  have  been  deprived  of  their 
rights.  The  fault  is  not  theirs;  they  would,  in 
almost  every  instance,  prefer  wedded  life  if  it 
were  in  their  power  to  attain  it ;  but  it  is  not. 
They  possess  the  same  susceptibilities  of  love, 
the  same  yearning  for  intimate  companionship,  that 
others  do,  but  these  tender  sensibilities  they  are 
obliged  to  repress.  The  fault  is  not  in  nature, 
nor  in  the  laws  of  God,  but  it  is  in  the  tyrannical 
laws  and  fashions  of  the  artificial  system  of  social 
life  which  now  obtains  among  us. .  This  system 
must  be  at  fault,  for  it  does  not  and  it  cannot 
provide  for  the  marriage  of  all ;  and  many  who 
desire  to  marry  are  forever  deprived  of  husbands 
and    homes :     while     the     system    of    polygamy 


OF  MARRIAGE.  45 

does  provide  for  all,  and  is,  therefore,  the  only 
system  which  is  in  harmony  with  divine  and 
natural  laws. 

This  proposition  is  further  demonstrated  by  the 
simple  fact  that  the  number  of  marriageable  women 
always  exceeds  the  number  of  marriageable  men. 

MORE   WOMEN  THAN   MEN. 

The  statistics  of  all  States  and  nations  agree  in 
this  fact,*  except,  occasionally,  in  those  States  in 

*  "  The  censuses  heretofore  taken  of  more  than  one  hundred 
millions  of  the  population  of  Europe  exhibit  the  remarkable  fact, 
that  in  those  countries,  during  the  j5rst  fifteen  years  of  life,  the 
males  uniformly  exceed  the  females  in  number,  but  that,  sub- 
sequently to  this  age,  the  females  become  most  numerous,  and 
increasingly  so  with  increase  of  age.  The  same  is  true  with 
regard  to  the  proportionate  numbers  of  the  sexes  in  Massa- 
chusetts and  the  other  New-England  States. 

"Du)ing  the  ten  \ears  1856-65,  the  total  number  ot  births 
registered  in  Massachusetts  was  334,493,  of  which  171,584,  or 
51.29  per  cent,  were  males;  161,715,  or  48.35  per  cent,  were 
females;  and  of  1,194,  or  ^  of  one  per  cent,  the  sex  waa  not 
stated.  During  the  first  ten  years  of  life,  the  deaths  of  males 
exceeded  those  of  females  in  a  ratio  beyond  that  of  the  relative 
number  of  the  sexes  at  birth. 

*'  In  1855,  there  were  32,301  more  females  than  males  in  IMas- 
sachusetts;  in  1860,  37,64^  more  females;  and  the  excess  of 


46  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

which  the  population  is  very  largely  made  up  by 
foreign  immigration.  Most  of  these  immigrants 
are  men  ;  and  many  of  them  have  left  their  wives 
and  families  in  the  mother-country,  and  do  not 
intend  to  become  permanent  citizens,  but  hope 
to  make  their  fortunes  and  return  home  to  enjoy 
them.  Yet  many  persons  who  have  never  ex- 
amined statistical  tables,  nor  taken  any  other  ac- 
curate means  of  informing  themselves,  suppose  the 
number  of  the  men  to  be  equal  to  that  of  the 
women ;  and  it  has  been  a  plausible  objection  to 
polygamy,  that  if  some  men  have  a  plurality  of 
wives,  some  other  men  must  thereby  be  deprived 
of  any,  and  the  system  must  be  unequal  and  unjust. 
The  objection  would  be  valid  were  it  based  upon 
valid  facts :  but  it  is  all  an  error ;  and  it  is  one 
which  a  little  observation  would  enable  almost  any 
one  readily  to  correct.  One  has  only  to  count  up 
the  persons  of  each  sex  of  marriageable  age  in  all 

females  in  1865  was  63,011."  —  Census  of  Massachusetts  for  1865, 
pp.  286,  287. 

"  Ever  since  the  first  census  of  17e5,  there  has  been  found  an 
excess  of  females  over  males  in  Massachusetts;  the  disparity 
htts  increased  somewhat  rapidly  since  1850."  —  Massachusetts 
Registration  Report  of  Births,  Marriages,  and  Deaths  for  1866. 


OF  MARRIAGE. 


4.1 


the  families  of  his  own  acquaintance  to  satisfy  him- 
self that  the  females  will  outnumber  the  males.  It 
is  true,  that,  at  birth,  the  number  of  each  sex  is 
nearly  equal ;  that  of  the  males  being  slightly  in 
excess,  but  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  males 
die  in  cliildhood,  than  of  the  females.*  Generally, 
about  fifty  per  cent  of  all  male  children  die  before 
the  age  of  twenty-one  years ;  while  only  about 
thirty-three  per  cent,  or  two-thirds  as  many  females, 
die  during  the  same  period.f     And  then,  as  they 


*  In  Massachusetts  the  percentage  of  the  deaths  of  male 
children  under  one  year  of  age  durhig  the  year  1866  was  22.25, 
that  of  female  children  during  the  same  year  was  17.42.  See 
Massachusetts  Registration  Report  for  1866,  p.  44. 

t  STATISTICAL  TABLES. 


rop.  OF  Massachusetts, 
June  1,  A.D.  1860. 

Male.     Female. 

15,869 

60,059 

64,476 

67,544 

57,070 


Under  1  year, 
1  and  under  5, 


10, 
15, 
20, 


30,  112,413 


15,()W5 
50,095 
64,0c0 
56,804 
63,730 
13^,106 


Total, 


596,713      034,353 


White  Pop.  of  Suffolk  Co., 
(City  of  Boston),  Mass.,  1860. 
Male.      Female. 


Under  1  year, 
1  and  under  5, 


6 
10 
15 


10, 
15, 
20, 


2,707 
9,358 
0,730 
8,2:J4 
19,865 


2,743 
9,334 
9,945 
8,313 
23,906 


Total. 


91,015        99,2;i4 


Colored  Pop.  N.Y.  City,  iseo* 


Male. 

Female- 

Under  1  year, 

82 

114 

1  and  under  5, 

410 

453 

5         "         10, 

666 

674 

10         "         15, 

665 

631 

15          "         20, 

446 

648 

20         "         30, 

1,120 

1,655 

Total, 


5,468         7,106 


Pop.  of  Pennsylvania,  1860. 
Male.     Finale. 
Under  1  year,      44,167 
1  and  under  5,  179,253 


10,  194,258 
15,  171.162 
20,  149,531 
30,  246,343 


42,704 
176,116 
191,094 
167,025 
160,357 
263,931 


Total, 


1,454,419    1,451,796 


48 


HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


grow  up  to  manhood,  the  boys  and  young  men  are 
constantly  exposed  to  hardships  and  dangers,  from 
which  the  softer  sex  is  exempt ;  and  hence  the 
excess  of  the  females  goes  on  continually  increas- 
ing, as  we  see  by  the  statistical  tables,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  marriageable  age.  All 
this  in  times  of  peace :  the  excess  must  be  much 
greater  than  usual  after  a  destructive  war ;  for 
during  the  late  civil  war  in  America  there  were  lost 
from  both  parties  nearly  a  million  of  men  in  the 
most  productive  period  of  life. 


Pop.  op  N.  York  State,  1860. 

Male.      Femah-. 

Under  1  year,       62,175 

luudunUer  5,  210,112 


5 
10 

20 


10,  232,42() 

16,  203,453 

20,  18S,893 

30,  341,0^7 


51,257 
210,591 
227  413 
l97,!-84 
205,004 
380,141 


Total, 


1,933,532  1,947,203 


White  rop.OF  N.Y.City,  i860. 
Mule.      Female. 


12,^47 
47,074 
'4<),3>0 
36.233 
33,344 
77,747 


12.072 
46.025 
45.452 
34,936 
39,028 
97,627 


Pop.  of  Phil.  Co.,  Penx., 
(White),  1860. 


Under  1  year, 

1  and  under  6, 

6  *'  lu, 
10  "         15, 

15  "  20, 
20         "         30, 

Total,  391,521      409,567       Total,  9,177        13,008 

The  foregoing  statistics  are  compiled  from  the  United-States 

Census  for  1860.    The  following  are  from  the  Census  of  Hassa- 


Male. 

Female. 

Under  1  year,         7,829 

7,475 

1  and  under  5,    30,864 

30,533 

5         "         10,    31,981 

31,737 

10          "         15,    26,135 

27,113 

15          *•         20,    23,425 

29,294 

20          •*         30,    49,r.67 

61,380 

Total,               260,156 

283,188 

Pop.  of  PniLADELPmA. 

(Colored),  1860. 

Male. 

Female. 

Under  1  year,            187 

209 

1  and  under  5,         809 

1,065 

5          "         10,      1,019 

1,195 

10          "         15,         996 

1,199 

5          ♦*         20,         915 

1,452 

20          *'         30,      1,875 

2,864 

OF  MARRIAGE. 


49 


WOMEN   MATURE   EARLIER  THAN   MEN. 

Young  women  become  marriageable  at  a  much 
earlier  age  than  young  men  do.  There  is  a  natural 
or  constitutional  difference  of  several  years,  and 
prudential  considerations  cause  the  difference  to 
become  practically  greater.  But  few  young  men 
are  born  to  large  fortunes,  which  these  times  of 
extravagance  require  for  the  fashionable  mainte- 
nance of  a  family  ;  and  those  who  are  rich  are  not 
always  the  most  prompt  to  marry.  They  prefer 
to  spend  their  early  manhood  in  dissipation,  and 
are  unwilling  to  bow  to  the  yoke  of  wedlock  till 


chusetts  for  1865,  published  under  the  supervision  of  0.  Warner, 
Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth.    Table  I.  p.  2. 


Pop. 

OK  Massachusetts, 

Pop.  of  Suffolk  Co. 

,  Mass. 

June  ] 

,  1805. 

(City  of 

Boston),    June  1,  1865. 

Male. 

Female. 

Under  1 

year,        2,145 

2,017 

Under  1 

year, 

1 1  974 

11,745 

1  and  under  2,     2,003 

1,819 

1  and  under  2, 

12,898 

12,431 

2 

3,      2,288 

2,255 

2           " 

3, 

13,043 

13,5!  5 

3          " 

4,      2,205 

2,233 

3          " 

4, 

14,101 

14.188 

4         " 

6,      2,280 

2,301 

4         " 

6, 

14,735 

1 KG53 

5          '* 

10,    11,267 

11,623 

5  •       *' 

10, 

71,777 

71,014 

10          " 

15,      9,848 

9,971 

10          " 

15, 

03,853 

62,838 

15          « 

20,      8.527 

10,267 

J5          " 

20, 

65,281 

61,890 

20          " 

30,.   17,601 

25,618 

20          " 

30, 

90,027 

129,479 

Total, 

96,529 

111,083 

Total, 

002,010 

005,021 

In  the  above  table  the  excess  of  females  between  the  ages  of 
15  and  20  is  6,600,  or  about  \  of  the  number  of  males ;  between 
20  and  30  it  is  33,452,  or  more  than  ^  of  the  number  of  males. 


50  mSrORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

they  begin  to  feel  the  iufirmltles  of  age ;  while  the 
poor  man  must  devote  several  years  of  his  majority 
to  toil  before  he  becomes  able  to  assume  matrimo- 
nial expenses.  The  result  is  that  most  men  do 
not  marry  until  between  twenty-five  and  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  and  many  at  a  later  period  ;  while  a 
large  majority  of  Avomen  who  marry  at  all  are 
married  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty- 
five.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  women  are  practi- 
cally marriageable  ten  years  younger  than  men  are, 
a  period  which  constitutes  a  third  part  of  the  ave- 
rage duration  of  adult  life.  From  these  two  causes 
alone,  —  the  greater  number  of  women,  and  their 
being  marriageable  so  much  younger,  —  the  pro- 
portion of  marriageable  women  to  marriageable 
men  would  be  about  two  to  one. 

MANY   MEN   REFUSE   TO   MARRY. 

But  the  practical  difference  is  still  greater.  For 
after  men  have  arrived  at  adult  manhood,  and 
have  acquired  the  means  of  supporting  a  family, 
many  of  them  refuse  marriage.  Some  have  out- 
lived their  youthful  desires,  and  have  acquired 
decided  habits  of  celibacy ;  some  are  too  gay  and 


OF  MARRIAGE.  61 

too  profligate ;  others  too  busy  and  too  selfish ; 
others  so  broken  down  by  early  dissipation  and 
diseased  by  the  contagious  poison  of  low  vice,  that 
they  are  totally  unfit  to  marry :  while  -  tkere  are 
many  others  whose  occupations  (such  as  sailors 
and  soldiers)  most  commonly  prevent  marriage. 
From  these  disabilities  the  other  sex  is  much  more 
exempt.  They  are  exposed  to  fewer  temptations  ; 
they  are  more  susceptible  to  religious  impressions  ; 
they  are  more  immediately  under  the  control  of 
parents  and  guardians,  and  are  saved  from  many 
of  those  enervating  and  degrading  habits  which 
beset  young  men,  rendering  them  either  disinclined 
to  marriage,  or  unfit  for  it,  or  both. 

FEW  WOMEN   DECLINE   MARRIAGE. 

There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  few  women  who 
are  unwilling  to  marry.  They  are  naturally  depend- 
ent upon  their  male  friends ;  and,  after  the  period 
of  childhood,  this  dependence  is  seldom  happy  or 
even  tolerable,  except  in  the  marriage  relation. 
The  former  is  a  dependence  of  necessity,  the  latter 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  dependence  of  love  ;  and  this 
distinction  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world. 


52  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Hence  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove  what  is  so 
universally  admitted,  that  women  fulfil  their  high- 
est destiny  in  life  only  by  becoming  wives  and 
mothers.  I  will  cite  a  woman's  testimony,  and 
submit  the  case,  quoting  the  earnest  words  of 
''  Gail  Hamilton."  '•  There  is  not  one  woman 
in  a  million  who  would  not  be  married  if  .  .  .  she 
could  have  a  chance.  How  do  I  know?  Just  as 
I  know  that  the  stars  are  now  shining  in  the  sky, 
though  it  is  higli  noon.  I  never  saw  a  star  at 
noonday ;  but  I  know  it  is  the  nature  of  stars  to 
shine  in  the  sky,  and  of  the  sky  to  hold  its  stars. 
Genius  or  fool,  rich  or  poor,  beauty  or  the  beast, 
if  marriage  were  what  it  should  be,  what  God 
meant  it  to  be,  what  even,  with  the  world's  present 
possibilities,  it  might  be,  it  would  be  the  Elysium, 
the  sole,  complete  Elysium,  of  woman,  yes,  and  of 
man.  Greatuess,  glory,  usefulness,  happiness, 
await  her  otherwheres ;  but  here  alone  all  her 
powers,  all  her  being,  can  find  full  play.  No  con- 
dition, no  character  even,  can  quite  hide  the  gleam 
of  the  sacred  fire  ;  but  on  the  household  hearth  it 
joins  the  warmth  of  earth  to  the  hues  of  heaven. 
Brilliant,  dazzling,  vivid,  a  beacon  and  a  blessing 


OF  MARRIAGE,  53 

her  light  may  be ;  but  only  a  happy  home  blends 
the  prismatic  rays  into  a  soft,  serene  whiteness,  that 
floods  the  world  with  divine  illumination.  Without 
wifely  and  motherly  love,  a  part  of  her  nature 
must  remain  enclosed,  a  spring  shut  up,  a  fountain 
sealed."  * 

MONOGAMY  PREVENTS    MARRIAGE. 

But  under  the  system  of  monogamy  it  is  impos- 
sible for  half  the  women  to  live  in  the  enjoyment 
of  the  married  state.  This  cruel  and  oppressive 
system  is  compelling  them  either  to  repress  the  fond* 
est  sensibilities  and  the  most  imperative  demands 
of  Nature,  and  lo  renounce  their  dearest  rights, 
or  else  to  assert  them  in  a  clandestine  and  forbidden 
manner,  and  thus  to  abandon  themselves  to  a  life 
of  infamy  and  an  eternity  of  shame  and  woe. 

In  older  and  more  wealthy  countries  practising 
monogamy,  the  comparative  number  of  unmarried 
to  married  women  is  even  greater.  The  statistical 
tables  of  England  show  that  less  than  one-third  of 
the  marriageable  women  of  that  country  were  liv- 
ing in  marriage  at  the  time  of  the  last  census. 

•  New  Atmosphere,  p.  65. 


/>l  msTonr  and  philosophy 

At  the  period  of  the  highest  glory  of  the  Roman 
empire,  and  also  during  its  long  decline,  while 
wealth  and  luxury  increased,  and  the  artijQcial  con- 
ventionalities of  society  were  greatly  multiplied,  it 
was  observed,  with  alarm,  that  marriages  became 
less  and  less  frequent,  and  were  consummated  later 
and  later  in  life :  and  all  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment was  exerted  in  vain  to  arrest  the  growing  evil. 
Heavy  fines  and  special  taxes  were  levied  upon  old 
bachelors,  and  high  premiums  paid  to  persons  hav- 
ing numerous  families  ;  but  the  evil  continued  to 
increase  till  the  empire  was  dismembered.* 

*  "But  neither  rewards  nor  penalties  proved  effectual  to 
check  the  increasing  tendency  to  celibacy;  and  at  the  period  of 
the  Gracchi  an  alarm  was  sounded  that  the  old  Roman  race  was 
becoming  rapidly  extinguished.  .  .  .  When  the  legislation  of 
Julius  Caesar  was  found  ineffectual  for  controlling  the  still 
growing  evil,  it  was  re-enforced  by  his  successor  with  fresh  pen- 
alties and  rewards."  —  Merivale's  Hist,  of  the  Romans^  chap.  33, 
vol.  2,  pp.  37,  38. 

"  But  upon  this  one  point  the  master  of  the  Romans  [Augus- 
tus] could  make  no  impression  upon  the  dogged  disobedience 
of  his  subjects:  both  the  men  and  the  women  preferred  the 
loose  terms  of  union  upon  which  they  had  consented  to  cohabit, 
&c."-./6ic/. 

•*  Augustus  most  anxiously,  both  by  law  and  precept,  en- 


OP  MAttBtAQ^.  55 

THE   MARRIAGE   CEREMONY. 

In  respect  to  the  mode  of  performing  the  mar- 
riage ceremony^  the  divine  law  does  not  prescribe 
any :  and  nothing  more  was  necessary,  in  ancient 
times,  to  constitute  a  valid  marriage  than  a  mutual 
agreement,  or  actual  cohabitation.  The  ancient  Ro- 
mans had  three  different  modes  of  tying  the  hyme- 
neal knot,  each  with  a  different  degree  of  looseness, 
but  none  of  them  so  firm  as  it  should  be.  The 
ceremony  has  always  varied  in  different  States,  and 
at  different  times  in  the  same  State,  and  should 
never  be  regarded  as  any  thing  more  than  a  public 
recognition  of  a  relationship  already  formed  and 
completed  between  the  parties.     Yet  as  marriage 

couraged  marriage;  but  the  profligacy  of  the  manners  which 
then  prevailed  was  such  that  all  the  honors  and  rewards  and 
immunities  which  he  prepared  were  of  but  little  avail."  — 
Kdghtle\fs  Hist,  of  the  Roman  Empire^  chap  i.,  p.  11. 

*'  The  principal  cause  of  the  prevalent  aversion  to  marriage 
was  the  extreme  dissoluteness  of  manners  at  that  time,  exceed- 
ing any  thing  known  in  modern  days.  .  .  .  The  first  law  on  the 
subject  was  the  Julian  '  De  Miritandis  Ordlnibus^^  of  736 ;  and 
this  having  proved  ineffectual,  a  now  and  more  comprehensive 
law,  embracing  all  the  provisions  of  the  Julian,  and  named  the 
^  Papia-Poppcean^'  was  passed  ia  the  year  762."  —  Jbid.^  chap,  2, 
p.  34. 


56  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

is  a  matter  of  importaut  consequence  to  the  friends 
and  kindred  of  the  parties,  and  also  to  the  whole 
State,  involving  public  as  well  as  private  obliga- 
tions, it  is  eminently  proper  that  some  appropriate 
ceremony  should  be  performed,  and  that  it  should 
be  sufficiently  public  to  leave  no  doubt  as  to  its 
reality.  Yet  marriages  are  made  in  heaven ;  the 
claim  of  the  Romish  Church  to  make  and  unmake 
them  is  a  blasphemous  assumption.  No  ceremony 
can  add  to  their  religious  validity  ;  and  it  can  only 
be  necessary  to  their  legality  and  publicity. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  57 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ORIGIN    OF    POLYGAMY. 

PREJUDICES  TO  BE  OVERCOME. 

Having  thus  fulfilled  my  promise  to  analyze 
and  demonstrate  the  fundamental  laws  of  love  and 
marriage,  I  shall  now  attempt,  with  equal  candor 
and  simplicity,  to  trace  the  origin  and  indicate  the 
moral  characteristics  of  the  two  social  systems  of 
monogamy  and  polygamy,  and  to  apply  to  them 
the  same  tests  of  philosophical  analysis  and  com- 
parison. And  here  allow  me  again  to  say  that  it 
is  necessary  to  arm  ourselves  with  patient  candor, 
or  we  cannot  appreciate  the  truth  and  justice  of 
any  fair  analysis  of  these  systems.  As  we  have 
been  brought  up  under  the  system  of  monogamy, 
we  have  inherited  the  prejudices  of  that  system ; 
and,  having  been  taught  to  look  upon  the  opposite 
one  with  detestation  and  contempt,  we  are,  on  that 
account,  but  ill  cualified  to  judge  between  them. 


58  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Let  us  remember  that,  whether  our  prejudices  are 
right  or  wrong,  they  are  prejudices  only.  We 
have  not  stopped  to  reason  ;  we  have  been  content 
to  cherish  our  opinions  on  this  subje(^t  w^ithout  ex- 
amination and  without  reason.  We  have  always 
accustomed  ourselves  to  believe  that  polygamy 
originated  in  barbarism  ;  that  it  is  perpetuated  by 
barbarians  only,  and  that  it  panders  to  the  basest 
a%d  most  depraved  of  human  passions.  But  let  us 
now  think  for  ourselves.  For  one,  I  claim  that 
right.  I  dare  to  question  the  superior  purity  of 
monogamy  ;  and  on  behalf  of  the  despised  and  per- 
secuted system  of  polygamy,  I  venture  to  appeal 
from  the  rash  decisions  of  prejudice  to  the  solemn 
tribunals  of  divine  and  natural  law  ;  and  in  sup- 
port of  this  appeal  I  cite  the  facts  of  sacred  and 
profane  history,  and  plead  the  inalienable  rights  of 
man. 

POLYGAMY   IS   NOT   BARBARISM. 

If  European  monogamists  have  hitherto  sur 
passed  all  other  men  in  civilization  and  social  hap- 
piness, it  is  not  on  account  of  their  monogamy, 
but,  no  doubt,  on  account  of  their  Christianity. 
Even  a  perverted  Christianity,  a  corrupted  Ghri?- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  59 

tiauity,  a  Roman  Christianity,  is  better  than  idola- 
try or  Mohammedanism.  What,  then,  may  we  not 
hope  when  Christianity  shall  become  free  and 
pare,  and  restored  to  its  pristine  simplicity  and 
glory? 

An  idolatrous  nation  practising  monogamy  has 
never  been  able  long  to  exist.  History  does  not 
furnish  one  example.  Such  nations  soon  become 
so  incurably  corrupt  as  to  incur  the  wrath  of  God, 
and  are  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Neither 
civilization  nor  barbarism  ;  military  power  or  pusil- 
lanimity ;  tyranny  or  freedom  ;  monarchy,  aristoc- 
racy, or  democracy  ;  literature,  art,  wealth,  genius, 
or  stupidity  has  ever  been  able  to  save  them.  Many 
such  States  and  nations  have  started  in  the  race  of 
glory  and  perpetual  empire  ;  but  each  of  them  has 
come  to  premature  decay.  Such  were  the  different 
States  of  ancient  Greece  and  ancient  Italy,  many 
of  them  distinguished  for  having  produced  men  of 
the  most  brilliant  genius  and  the  most  renowned  ex- 
perience in  the  various  arts  of  peace  and  war,  and 
several  of  them  achieving  extensive  conquests  and 
becoming  vast  empires  ;  yet  they  very  soon  collapsed 
and  went  to  ruin.     And  such  was  the  fate  of  the 


60  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

mauy  scores  or  perhaps  hundreds  of  the  petty  States 
of  all  Europe  before  the  establishment  of  Christian- 
ity. They  rose,  they  flourished,  they  becanae  licen- 
tious, they  fell.  Wave  after  wave  of  the  purer 
races  of  the  polygamists  of  Asia  rolled  over  them, 
knd  assumed  their  places  ;  and  as  these,  in  turn,  fell 
into  their  social  habits,  and  adopted  their  monogamy, 
and  became  corrupt,  they  also  became  extinct,  and 
were  succeeded  by  newer  and  purer  immigrations. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  polygamists  of  Asia  have 
preserved  their  social  purity,  and  along  with  it 
many  of  their  nationalities,  through  every  age, 
notwithstanding  their  idolatry  and  Mohammedan- 
ism. Such  are  the  nations  of  China,  Japan,  Persia, 
and  Arabia,  whose  living  languages  and  existing 
laws  date  back  to  the  very  earliest  records  of  an 
tiquity.  An  intelligent  Christian  nation  practising 
polygamy  has  never  yet  existed,  simply  because  the 
two  institutions  have  hitherto  been  falsely  deemed 
incompatible  and  irreconcilable.  The  Gnostic  her- 
esy had  so  soon  corrupted  the  springs  of  Christian 
learning,  and  the  Grecian  and  Roman  hierarchies 
had  so  soon  usurped  the  seats  of  Christian  author- 
ity, that  the  freedom  and  simplicity  of  the  pristine 


OF  MARRIAGE,  61 

faith  were  perverted,  even  before  such  an  experi- 
ment could  be  made,  as  I  shall  fully  demonstrate  in 
the  next  chapter  ;  and  now  it  is  most  probable  that 
if  such  an  experiment  shall  ever  be  made,  it  will 
be  somewhere  upon  the  continent  of  free  America. 

"  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way ; 
The  four  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day,  — 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last." 

Polygamy  is  not  barbarism,  for  it  has  been  main- 
tained and  supported  by  such  men  as  Abraham. 
Moses,  David,  and  Solomon  ;  Avhose  superiors  in 
all  that  constitute  the  highest  civilization  -—  knowl- 
edge, piety,  wisdom,  and  refinement  of  mind  and 
manners  —  the  world  has  never  known,  either  in 
ancient  or  modern  times.  Yet  polygamy,  though 
it  be  not  barbarism,  has  almost  always  and  every- 
where prevailed,  where  a  simple,  natural,  and  in- 
artificial state  of  society  subsists.  Its  origin  is 
coeval  with  that  of  the  human  race.  It  is  men- 
tioned before  the  flood.  It  is  mentioned  soon  after 
the  flood.  As  soon  as  mankind  were  multiplied 
upon  the  earth,  it  was  discovered  that  the  number 


G2  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  women  exceeded  that  of  the  men  ;  and  also 
that  the  amorous  passions  of  the  men  were  strong- 
er than  those  of  the  women.  Polygamy  brings  both 
these  inequalities  together,  and  allows  them  to  cor- 
rect each  other.  It  furnishes  every  woman  who 
wishes  to  marry,  a  husband  and  a  home  ;  and  gives 
every  man  an  opportunity  of  expending  his  super- 
abundant vitality  in  an  honest  way. 

WHY  GOD  MADE  BUT  ONE  WOMAN. 

If  it  be  objected  that  God  created  but  one  woman 
for  Adam,  it  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  reply,  that 
both  the  man  and  the  woman  were  also  created  per- 
fect. They  were  perfect  in  health,  and  perfect  in 
morals.  But  we  are  now  imperfect  in  both  respects  ; 
and  we  now  need  a  social  system  adapted  to  men 
and  women  as  they  are.  If  humanity  shall  ever  be 
restored  to  its  pristine  strength  and  beauty,  the 
equality  of  the  sexes  will  also  be  restored,  and  there 
will  be  a  man  for  every  woman,  and  a  woman  for 
every  man ;  a  true  woman  without  imperfection, 
whose  accomplishments  will  not  be  superficial,  nor 
whose  attractions  artificial ;  but  whose  rosy  cheeks 
and  pearly  teeth  and  swelling  breasts  and  clustering 


OF  MARRIAGE.  68 

ringlets  shall  be  all  her  own.  God  speed  the  day  I 
Should  I  live  to  see  it,  I  would  become  an  advocate 
for  monogamy.  But,  as  it  now  is,  there  is  not  a  man 
for  every  woman  ;  and  either  some  women  must  re- 
main unmarried  and  "  waste  their  sweetness  on  the 
desert  air,"  and  be  entirely  deprived  of  their  birth- 
right, and  denied  all  matrimonial  advantages,  or 
they  may,  several  of  them,  agree  to  share  those  ad- 
vantages in  common  with  each  other,  by  having 
a  single  husband  between  them.  Polygamy  does 
not  compel  them  to  do  this  ;  it  only  permits  them 
to  do  it  in  case  they  have  no  opportunity  to  do  bet- 
ter. On  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  compel  a  man 
to  marry  even  one  woman,  much  less  to  have  more  ; 
but,  if  the  intensity  of  his  passion  urges  him  to  such 
lengths  that  he  must  have  and  will  have  more  than 
one,  it  requires  him  to  take  them  honestly  and  hon- 
orably, and  to  support  them  and  be  a  true  husband 
to  them. 

POLYGAMY   TAUGHT   IN   THE   BIBLE. 

The  Sacred  Scriptures  represent  the  wisest  and 
best  men  that  ever  lived,  as  practising  polygamy 
with  the  divine  blessing  and  approval.    David  had 


64  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

seven  wives  before  he  reigned  in  Jerusalem,  ''  and 
he  took  more  concubines  and  wives  out  of  Jerusa- 
lem, after  he  was  come  from  Hebron,"  for  God 
"gave  him  the  house  of  Saul  and  the  wives  of 
Saul  into  his  bosom."  *  When  God  reproved 
Abimelech,  king  of  Gerar,  for  his  intended  adultery 
with  Sarah,  wife  of  Abraham,  he  did,  at  the  same 
time,  approve  of  his  polygamy ;  for  Abimelech 
said,  ''  In  the  integrity  of  my  heart  and  innocency 
of  my  hands  have  I  done  this."  "  Said  he  not 
unto  me.  She  is  'my  sister  ?  and  she,  even  she 
herself,  said.  He  is  my  brother."  And  God  said, 
'*  I  know  that  thou  didst  this  in  the  integrity  of 
thy  heart :  "  ''  now,  therefore,  restore  the  man  his 
wife."  ''  And  God  healed  Abimelech  and  his  wife 
and  his  maid-servants."  God  could  allow  him  to 
live  in  open  polygamy,  without  reproof,  and  "  in 
the  integrity  of  his  heart,"  but  could  not  allow 
him  to  commit  adultery,  even  ignorantly.f  Solo 
men  was  reproved  for  multiplying  the  number  of 
his  wives  to  an  unreasonable  and  ostentatious  de- 
gree, but  more  especially  for  having  taken  them 

*  2  Sam.  iii.  2-5,  14;  v.  13;  xii.  8.  f  Gen.  xx. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  65 

from  heathen  nations  ;  for  "  they  turned  away  his 
heart  after  other  gods  :  "  but  these  are  the  only 
reasons  assigned  for  his  reproof,  there  being  no 
intimation  that  polygamy  was  wrong  in  itself. 
But  it  is  unnecessary  to  cite  other  examples  from 
the  Bible.  No  one  familiar  with  that  book  has 
ever  denied  that  polygamy  is  taught  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  yet  most  Christians  suppose  it  to 
be  forbidden  in  the  New.  Have  we  any  right  to 
sucli  a  supposition  ?  Are  we  right  in  entertaining 
any  supposition  on  this  subject?  If  it  is  forbidden 
in  the  New  Testament,  have  we  not  a  right  to 
demand  the  most  unequivocal  and  undoubted  proofs 
of  such  prohibition  ?  Is  the  God  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob  the  Christian's  God,  or  is  he  not  ? 
Is  it  not  possible  that  this  supposition  is  an  error? 
And,  if  it  be  an  error,  is  it  not  possible  that  it  has 
been  one  means  of  lessening  our  reverence  for  the 
Old  Testament,  and  thereby  undermining  our  con- 
fidence in  the  Bible  as  a  whole?  If  this  suppo- 
sition be  an  error,  has  it  not  been  tending  to 
make  infidels  of  us  all?  I  copy  the  following 
paragraph  from  an  essay  of  the  Rev.  S.  W. 
Foljambe,  recently  delivered  by  him,  at  a  Sabbath- 


66  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

school  Teachers'   Convention  at  Boston,  with  my 
lilost  hearty  commendation  :  — 

"It  is  sad  to  believe  that  infidelity  in  some  form 
|)revails  t&fOtighout  our  State,  yet  we  cannot 
doubt  that  it  is  even  so,  generally  covert  with  an 
6utward  profession  of  regard  for  Christianity,  but 
tfeveftfeeless  real,  accompanied  hy  a  disregard  and 
d'isbelief  of  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.  I  refer  to  this  not  as  any  proof  that 
Protestantism  or  Christianity  is  or  can  be  a 
failure,  or  that  the  Scriptures  are  in  any  real 
danger,  but  as  indicating  a  responsibility  resting 
on  us  to  maintain  and  defend  the  equal  authority 
and  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  that  "  all 
scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God  ; "  that  its 
writers,  whether  Moses  or  David,  Isaiah  or  Paul,, 
Ezekiel  or  John,  were  '  holy  men  of  God  wha 
wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.*" 
Is  it  not  true,  that,  among  many  who  hold  to  the 
truth  and  reality  of  a  divine  revelation,  there  has 
come  to  be  a  feeling  that  in  some  way  the  New 
Testament  has  superseded  the  Old,  and  that  the 
Old  has  ceased  to  be  'profitable  for  doctrine,  for 
correction,  for  reproof,  for  iq^truption  in  righteousr 


OF  MAERIAGE.  67 

ness'?  Now,  if  this  can  be  demonstrated,  what 
is  there  to  prove  that  in  a  still  more  advanced  stage 
of  spiritual  life,  as  is  claimed  by  many,  the  New 
Testament  itself  may  not  be  superseded  by  some 
wiser  interpretations  of  the  meaning  and  purpose 
of  Christ's  life,  and  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  of 
John  be  superseded  by  the  gospel  of  Strauss  or 
Renan  ;  or  the  interpretations  of  Paul  as  to  the 
person  and  work  of  Christ  be  superseded  by  the 
interpretation  of  Parker  and  of  Music  Hall? 

"It  seems  to  me  that  our  Lord  is  explicit  on  this 
point,  that  the  Jewish  Scriptures  were  not  and 
could  not  be  superseded  by  any  later  revelation 
even  by  himself:  'Think  not  that  I  am  come  to 
destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets  :  I  am  not  come 
to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil ; '  and  again  —  '  Had  ye  be- 
lieved Moses,  ye  would  have  believed  me,  for  he 
wrote  of  me ; '  and  he  is  continually  quoting  them 
as  authority,  showing  that  there  is  no  inconsistency 
between  the  two  revelations.  Together  they  form 
one  continuous  and  connected  divine  word.  True, 
the  Scriptures  are  composed  of  books  that  are 
cumulative  and  progressive,  but  they  are  interde- 
pendent.    The  internal  meaning  of  the  two  parts 


68  HISTORY  A2^D  PHILOSOPHY 

is  entirely  harmonious.  The  divine  Spirit  is  in 
them  both.  They  never  contradict,  but  always 
interpret,  explain,  and  illustrate  each  other." 

But  let  the  inspiration  and  perpetual  authority  of 
the  Old  Testament  be  fully  admitted,  yet  the  mod- 
ern Christian  may  say,  ''  We  do  not  live  under  the 
First  Covenant,  nor  observe  the  ceremonies  of 
Moses ;  but  we  live  in  the  New  Dispensation,  un- 
der the  full  light  of  the  gospel :  Christ  has  fulfilled 
the  ritual  and  emblematical  ordinances  of  the  law, 
and  set  them  aside ;  and  it  is  presumed  that  the 
ancient  marriage  laws  have  been  set  aside  among 
the  rest,  and  superseded  by  the  purer  system  of 
monogamy."  But  this  assumption  cannot  be  sup- 
ported either  by  sufficient  testimony  or  by  valid  rea- 
soning. The  social  system  of  polygamy  had  existed 
before  the  time  of  Moses,  and  had  no  dependence 
upon  the  ceremonial  law  which  was  instituted  in  his 
day.  That  law  only  confirmed  it  as  a  pre-existent 
institution.  Marriage  laws  cannot  be  regarded  as 
merely  ritual  and  emblematical :  they  are  moral 
and  fundamental,  guarding  the  dearest  rights  and 
punishing  the  deepest  wrongs  of  mankind.  They 
arc,  therefore,  equally  permanent  with  those  laws 


OF  MAttntAGK  69 

protecting  life  and  property,  those  inculcating  obe- 
dience to  parents  and  rulers,  and  those  maintaining 
the  sanctity  of  oaths.  All  these,  together  with  the 
marriage  laws,  existed  before  the  time  of  Moses, 
and  have  survived  the  time  of  Christ.  They  are 
among  those  "  laws  "  that  Jesus  came  not  to  subvert 
but  to  ratify ;  as  Dr.  George  Campbell  of  Aber- 
deen has,  in  Matt.  v.  17,  very  exactly  translated 
the  terms  iiaxalvGai  and  7iXr]QooGat,  Hence  the  mar- 
riage system  of  polygamy  never  formed  a  part  of 
that  ceremonial  dispensation  which  was  abrogated 
by  the  New  Testament ;  nor  has  it  ever  been  proved 
that  the  New  Testament  was  designed  to  affect  any 
change  in  it ;  but  the  presumption  is  that  this  new 
dispensation  has  also  left  it,  as  it  found  it,  —  abid- 
ing still  in  force.  If  any  change  were  to  be  made 
in  an  institution  of  such  long  standing,  confirmed 
by  positive  law,  it  could  obviously  be  made  only  by 
equally  positive  and  explicit  ordinances  or  enact- 
ments of  the  gospel.  But  such  enactments  are 
wanting.  Christ  himself  was  altogether  silent  in 
respect  to  polygamy,  not  once  alluding  to  it ;  yet 
it  was  practised  at  the  time  of  his  advent  through- 
out Judaea  and  Galilee,  and  in  all  the  other  countries 


70  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPUT 

of  Asia  and  Africa,  and,  without  doubt,  by  some 
of  his  own  disciples. 

The  Book  of  the  Acts  is  equally  silent  as  the  four 
Gospels  are.  No  allusion  to  it  is  found  in  any  of 
the  sermons  or  instructions  or  discussions  of  the 
apostles  and  early  saints  recorded  in  that  book.  It 
was  not  because  Jesus  or  the  apostles  durst  not 
condemn  it,  had  they  considered  it  sinful,  that  they 
did  not  speak  of  it,  for  Jesus  hesitated  not  to  de- 
nounce the  sins  of  hypocrisy,  covetousness,  and 
adultery,  and  even  to  alter  and  amend,  apparently, 
the  ancient  laws  respecting  divorce  and  retaliation  ; 
but  he  never  rebuked  them  for  their  polygamy,  nor 
instituted  any  change  in  that  system.  And  this 
uniform  silence,  so  far  as  it  implies  any  thing,  im- 
plies approval.  John  the  Baptist  was  thrown  into 
prison,  where  he  was  afterwards  beheaded,  for  re- 
proving King  Herod  on  account  of  his  adultery : 
and  we  cannot  doubt,  that,  if  he  had  considered 
polygamy  to  be  sinful,  he  would  have  mentioned  it ; 
for  Herod's  father  was,  just  before  that  time,  liv- 
ing with  nine  wives,  whose  names  are  recorded  by 
Josephus,  in  his  "  Antiquities  of  the  Jews  ;  "  * 

•  Antiq.  Jud.,  book  17,  chap.  1,  §  3. 


bF  MARRIAGE,  tl 

but  Jolm  only  reproved  liim  for  marryiug  Hero- 
dias,  his  brother  Philip's  wife,  while  his  brother 
was  living.  He  administered  the  same  reproof  to 
Herod  that  Nathan  had  formerly  done,  to  David, 
and  for  similar  reasons.  The  apostles  always  de- 
nounced the  sins  of  fornication  and  adultery,  but 
never  denounced  polygamy,  nor  intimated  in  any 
way  that  it  was  a  sin.  In  all  the  long  and  painful 
catalogues  of  sins  enumerated  in  the  first,  second, 
and  third  chapters  of  Romans,  many  of  which 
relate  to  the  unlawful  indulgence  of  the  amorous 
propensities,  polygamy  is  not  once  named.  It  is 
the  very  place  where  it  is  morally  certain  that  it 
would  have  been  named  if  it  were  sinful ;  and,  that 
it  is  not  there  named,  we  are  fully  warranted  to 
believe  that  it  is  not  sinful. 

I 
I 

MONOGAMY  OF   BISHOPS   AND   DEACONS. 

The  only  portions  of  the  Sacred  Writings 
which  seem  to  disapprove  of  polygamy  are 
found  in  the  epistles  of  Paul  concerning  the  quali- 
fications of  bishops  and  deacons.  These  pas- 
sages have  been  variously  interpreted  by  various 
commentators.      Some    suppose    that    it     forbids 


72  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

these  officers  of  the  church  from  contracting  a 
second  marriage  after  the  death  of  the  first  wife  ; 
others  that  it  forbids  any  but  married  persons 
being  inducted  into  these  sacred  offices  —  that 
I  hey  must  be  the  husbands  of  one  wife,  at  least, 
—  but  that  it  does  not  forbid  them  taking  more. 
But  the  commonly  received  opinion,  and  the  one 
to  which  I  am  myself  inclined,  is,  that  in  choos- 
ing men  for  these  offices,  such  men  should  be 
chosen  who  are  not  much  inclined  to  amorous 
pleasures,  and  each  of  whom  has  one  wife  only. 
They  should  be  men  of  peculiar  temperance  and 
sobriety.  This  implies  that  polygamy  was  still 
practised  in  the  primitive  Christian  churches ; 
for  otherwise  it  would  have  been  superfluous  and 
irrelevant  to  mention  this  as  a  special  qualification 
in  a  candidate  for  one  of  those  offices.  And 
even  this  recommendation  applies  only  to  candi- 
dates, and  not  to  those  who  have  been  already 
ordained.  In  confirmation  of  these  views  I  here 
cite  the  authority  of  James  McKnight,  D.D.,  one 
of  the  most  learned  commentators  on  the  New 
Testament. 

"  As  the  Asiatic  nations    universally  practised 


OF  MARRIAGE,  78 

polygamy,  from  an  inordinate  love  of  the  pleasures 
of  the  flesh,  the  apostle  ordered,  by  inspiration, 
that  none  should  be  made  bishops  but  those,  who, 
by  avoiding  polygamy,  had  showed  ,themselves 
temperate  in  the  use  of  sensual  pleasures.  ...  It 
may  be  objected,  perhaps,  that  the  gospel  ought  to 
have  prohibited  the  people,  as  well  as  the  minis- 
ters of  religion,  from  polygamy  and  divorce,  if 
these  things  were  morally  evil.  As  to  divorce, 
the  answer  is,  all,  both  clergy  and  people,  were 
restrained  from  unjust  divorces  by  the  precept  of 
Christ.  With  respect  to  polygamy  being  an 
offence  against  political  prudence,  rather  than 
against  morality,  it  had  been  permitted  to  the 
Jews  by  Moses,  and  was  generally  practised  by 
the  Eastern  nations  as  a  matter  of  indifferency  ; 
it  was,  therefore,  to  be  corrected  mildly  and 
gradually,  by  example  rather  than  by  express 
precept,  without  occasioning  those  domestic 
troubles  and  causeless  divorces  which  must  neces- 
sarily have  ensued,  if,  by  an  express  injunction  of 
the  apostles,  husbands,  immediately  on  their  be- 
coming Christians,  had  been  obliged  to  pui  away 
all  their  wives  except  one/*  —  Commentary  on 
1  Tim.  iii,  2. 


74  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Tills  testimony  is  specially  valuable  as  being 
'extorted,  by  the  force  of  truth,  from  an  avowed 
•advocate  of  monogamy.  Although  it  is  highly 
•colored  by  that  system,  yet  these  four  points  are 
'distinctly  admitted.  1.  That  polygamy  was 
^commonly  practised  by  the  j)rimitive  Christians. 
S.  That  it  had  been  expressly  permitted  in  the 
Old  Testament.  3.  That  it  was  not  prohibited 
in  the  New  Testament.  4.  That  it  was  from 
j)olitical  and  prudential  considerations,  and  not 
ifrom  any  immorality  in  it,  that  candidates  for 
the  ministry  were  recommended  to  abstain  from  it. 
Hence,  we  conclude  that  this  recommendation  of 
the  apostle  was  made  out  of  respect  to  the  preju- 
dices of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  under  whose 
laws  they  were  then  living,  and  who  practised  a 
•corrupt  and  licentious  monogamy,  which  I  shall 
•describe  in  the  next  chapter.  It  was  doubtless 
for  similar  reasons  that  the  same  apostle  recom- 
mended to  the  Corinthian  Christians  not  to  marry ; 
but  no  one  except  a  Shaking  Quaker  or  a  Roman 
Catholic  can  believe  that  such  a  recommendation 
was  intended  to  apply  to  all  persons,  at  all  times 
and  places,  or  that  it  was  proper  then,   on  any 


OF  MARRIAGE,  75 

other   ground    than    tlie   notorious    corru])tion    of 
Corinthian  morals.    See  Appendix,  page  253. 

Now  polygamy  is  either  right,  or  it  is  wrong.  If 
it  is  wrong,  it  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God.  If 
it  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God  now,  it  always  has 
been,  ever  since  the  fall  of  man  ;  for  God  has  not 
changed,  human  nature  has  not  changed,  and  the 
mutual  relation  of  the  sexes  has  not  changed.  If 
it  is  contrary  to  the  divine  will,  God  would  cer- 
tainly liave  expressed  decided  disapprobation  of  it 
in  his  word,  and  denounced  tliose  who  practised 
it.  But  on  tlie  contrary,  it  was,  by  the  Mosaic 
law,  expressly  sanctioned,  and,  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, expressly  commanded,  as  fully  appears 
from  Deut.  xxii.  28,  and  xxv.  5.  In  the  former 
passage  it  was  commanded  that  if  any  man 
(whether  married  or  unmarried)  had  had  illicit 
intercourse  with  an  unbetrothed  virgin,  then  he 
must  marry  her,  and  must  not  put  her  away  all 
his  life.  In  the  other  passage  it  was  commanded 
that  when  a  married  man  died  without  issue,  his 
brother  must  marry  his  widow.  And  this  com- 
mand is  positive,  whether  the  surviving  brother 
have  a  wife  already,  or  not ;  and  even  if  several 


76  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

such  married  brothers  should  die,  and  leave  no 
offspring,  the  surviving  brother  would  be  obliged, 
by  this  law,  to  marry  all  the  widows ;  and  in 
each  case,  the  first-born  children  would  succeed  to 
the  inheritances  of  their  mothers'  first  husbands, 
but  the  younger  children  would  belong  to  their 
own  father.  This  was  a  law  in  Israel  long  before 
the  ceremonial  law  of  Moses,  as  we  learn  from 
the  38th  chapter  of  Genesis,  where  it  is  stated 
that  Onan  the  son  of  Judah  was  required  to  marry 
the  widow  of  his  brother  Er,  and  because  he  took 
a  wicked  course  to  prevent  having  offspring  by 
her,  he  was  put  to  death  by  the  immediate  act  of 
God.  The  entire  Book  of  Ruth,  also,  constitutes 
a  beautiful  illustration  and  commentary  of  this 
ancient  law ;  and  it  is  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament  in  such  terms  as  to  imply  that  it  was 
still  in  force  in  the  time  of  Christ  (Matt.  xxii. 
24-28). 

POLYGAMY    APPROVED    OF    GOD. 

I  sum  up  the  divine  testimony  thus  :  If  polyga- 
my is  now  a  vice  and  a  sin,  like  adultery  or 
lying  or  stealing,  it  always  has  been   and  always 


OF  MARRIAGE,  77 

will  be  a  sin  ;  and  God  would  never  have  ap- 
proved or  commanded  it :  but  we  have  seen  above, 
that  he  has  commanded  it  in  two  eases  at  least, 
viz.,  in  case  of  the  married  man's  illicit  inter- 
course with  an  unbetrothed  virgin,  and  in  case  of 
the  married  man's  brother's  widow ;  and  in  these 
cases,  therefore,  it  cannot  be  a  sin.  In  further 
proof  of  its  innocence,  let  it  be  remembered  that 
it  was  practised  without  rebuke  by  Abraham, 
when  he  was  styled  ^'  The  Friend  of  God ;  "  by 
Jacob,  when  his  name  was  changed  to  Israel  on 
account  of  his  piety  and  his  faith ;  by  David, 
when  God  himself  "gave  testimony,  and  said,  I 
have  found  David  the  son  of  Jesse  a  man  after 
my  own  heart ; "  and  by  many  others  whose 
names  will  be  held  in  everlasting  remembrance, 
being  preserved  in  Holy  Writ,  long  after  those  of 
modern  pseudo-religionists,  who  now  denounce 
polygamy  as  barbarous  and  sinful,  shall  have 
perished  in  oblivion. 


78  BISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  V. 

ORIGIN   OF   MONOGAMY. 

MONOGAMY  IS    THE    DISSOLUTE    DAUGHTER    OF  PA- 
GANISM  AND   ROMANISM. 

I  HAVE  demonstrated  that  monogamy  is  not  com- 
manded in  the  Bible,  and  that  it  is  not  the  doctrine 
of  Christianity.  I  shall  now  account  for  its  origin, 
by  proving  that  it  is  the  joint  offspring  of  paganism 
and  Romanism.  The  social  system  of  European 
monogamy  is  proved  to  be  derived  from  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  Romans  (especially  from  the  latter), 
by  the  early  histories  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  and 
by  an  uninterrupted  descent  of  traditional  customs 
from  them  to  our  own  times.  It  is  one  of  those 
pagan  abominations  which  we  have  inherited,  which 
the  Roman  Church  has  sanctioned  and  confirmed, 
and  from  which  we  find  it  so  difficult  to  emancipate 
ourselves. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  79 

IMPURITY   OF  ANCIENT   GREEK  AND   ROMAN  MORALS. 

The  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  notions  of  mar- 
riage and  of  chastity  were  in  some  respects  different 
from  ours,  but  only  as  Christianity  has  made  them 
different.  We  are  ready  to  admit,  at  least  in 
theory,  what  Christianity  requires,  that  the  laws 
of  chastity  are  binding  upon  men  and  women  equal- 
ly, and  that  no  person  can  innocently  indulge  in 
amorous  pleasure  except  with  his  ovva  wife  or  her 
own  husband.  But  among  them  this  rule  of  chas- 
tity applied  to  the  female  sex  alone.  The  other 
sex  claimed  and  exercised  their  freedom  from  it, 
without  concealment  or  palliation,  and  at  the  same 
time  without  the  loss  of  moral  character  or  of  pub- 
lic estimation.  To  be  grossly  addicted  to  whoredom 
and  seduction  was  no  dishonor :  it  was  only  when 
convicted  of  Sodomy  that  they  were  pronounced 
unchaste. 

Marriage  was  not  expected  or  intended  to  pre- 
serve the  public  purity,  or  to  secure  domestic  hap- 
piness, but  was  rather  designed  to  perpetuate  their 
heroic  races,  to  preserve  their  rich  patrimonial 
estates,  and  to  maintain  the  ascendency  of  their 


80  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

aristocratic  families.  For  these  purposes  they 
guarded  the  chastity  of  their  wives  with  vigilant 
jealousy  and  punished  their  adultery  with  severity  ; 
but  the  men  placed  themselves  under  no  such  re- 
strictions either  in  law  or  in  fact,  but  they  habitu- 
ally sought  their  own  pleasures  away  from  home, 
in  the  public  haunts  of  impurity,  at  the  house  of  an 
Aspasia,  of  a  Leona,  or  of  a  Messalina,  or  at  some 
other  establishment  of  their  numerous  Cyprian  and 
Corinthian  dames  ;  or,  if  they  could  not  pay  the 
extravagant  prices  demanded  by  these  celebrated 
beauties,  they  could  at  least  resort  to  their  public 
temples,  and  gratify  their  lust  among  the  prostitutes 
kept  there.* 

*  "  The  Greeks  had  but  little  pleasure  in  the  society  of  their 
wives.  At  first,  the  young  husband  only  visited  her  by  stealth: 
to  be  seen  in  company  with  her  was  a  disgrace."  —  Bulwer's 
Hist,  of  Athens^  book  i.  chap.  6. 

*'  In  the  times  of  Corinthian  opulence  and  prosperity,  it  is 
said  that  the  shrine  of  Venus  was  attended  by  no  less  than  one 
thousand  female  slaves  dedicated  to  her  service  as  courtesans. 
These  priestesses  of  Venus  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  wealth 
and  luxury  of  the  city."  —  ^«iAo«'s  Classical  Dict.j  art  "Cb- 
rtn^AiM." 

Strabo,  in  his  great  work  on  Geography,  in  speaking  of  the 


OF  MAnniAQE,  81 

THEIR   MARRIAGES    NOT   PERMANENT. 

The  monogamy  of  the  ancient  Romans,  from  and 
after  the  time  of  two  hundred  years  at  least  before 
the  Christian  era,  did  not  require  their  marriages 
to  be  permanent.  The  principle  of  a  life-long  rela- 
tionship between  the  husband  and  wife,  which  both 
Moses  and  Christ  have  insisted  upon,  formed  no 
part  of  their  social  system.  Marriage,  among 
them,  was  not  so  much  a  religious  ceremony  incul- 
cating and  requiring  solemn  vows  of  binding  obli- 
gation, as  a  civil  compact,  instituted  for  purposes 
of  mere  present  convenience  or  family  aggrandize- 
ment. It  originated  in  policy  rather  than  in  love. 
They  were  not,  of  course,  destitute  of  the  passion 

temple  of  Venus  in  Corinth  says,  "  There  were  more  than  a 
thousand  harlots,  the  slaves  of  the  temple,  who,  in  honor  of  the 
goddess,  prostituted  themselves  to  all  comers  for  hire,  and 
through  these  the  city  was  crowded,  and  became  wealthy."  — 
Book  8,  p.  151. 

*'  Gravely  impressing  upon  his  wife  and  daughters  that  to  sing 
and  dance,  to  cultivate  the  knowledge  of  languages,  to  exercise 
the  taste  and  understanding,  was  the  business  of  the  hired  courte- 
san, it  was  to  the  courtesan  that  he  repaired  himself  for  the 
solace  of  his  own  lighter  hours."  —  MtrivaWs  Hist,  of  the  Bo- 
matiiy  vol.  ii.,  chap.  33,  p.  32.    D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  18G4, 


82  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  love,  for  they  were  liuniaa  beings  ;  but  that 
passion  was  permitted  to  influence  them  but  little 
in  contracting  their  marriages.  They  systemati- 
cally degraded  their  love  into  lust.  Their  monoga- 
my required  it.  Whenever  they  loved  a  woman 
they  would  manage  to  enjoy  her  favors  without 
marriage.  Seduction,  adultery,  and  whoredom 
were  rather  the  rule  than  the  exception  among 
them ;  but  marriage  was  for  other  and  more  im- 
portant purposes  than  those  of  love.  It  was  rather 
an  alliance  of  interests  than  of  affections,  and  an 
affinity  of  families  rather  tlian  of  hearts. 

And  as  policy  made  marriages,  so  policy  often 
unmade  them.  If  a  man  could,  at  any  time,  form 
a  new  alliance  which  would  give  him  more  wealth 
or  influence,  he  always  felt  himself  at  liberty  to 
divorce  his  wife,  and  form  that  new  alliance.  It 
was  not  uncommon,  among  them,  for  a  man  to 
have  had  half  a  dozen  diflerent  wives,  in,  perhaps, 
as  many  years. 

CONSEQUENCES   OF  THEIR  FREQUENT  DIVORCES. 

Imbecility  and  barrenness,  the  usual  penalties 
which   Nature   inflicts   upon  the  violators  of  the 


OF  MARRIAGE,  8B 

marriage  laws,  came  upon  them.  Their  children 
were  few  and  short  lived,  and  in  order  to  maintain 
their  family  influence,  and  transmit  their  names  and 
their  wealth  to  future  generations,  which  it  was 
their  great  ambition  to  do,  they  were  obliged  to 
resort  to  the  expedient  of  very  frequent  adoptions, 
by  taking  the  children  of  distant  relations,  or  of 
those  allied  to  them  by  marriage,  and  calling  them 
their  own.  And  such  were  the  frequency  of  their 
divorces,  and  the  intricacy  of  their  relationships 
caused  by  their  numerous  adoptions,  that  it  has 
been  almost  impossible  for  the  best  historians  and 
biographers  to  give  us  any  intelligible  account  of 
their  families.  Such  authors  as  Gibbon,  Anthon, 
Keightley,  and  Merivale,  who  are  usually  accurate 
in  other  respects,  are  found  utterly  at  fault,  when 
they  undertake  to  state  the  relationship  which  the 
most  eminent  personages  of  Roman  history  bear  to 
one  another.* 

*  Coniradictions  and  Inaccuracies  of  Eminent  llistarians. 

Anthon.  —  In  art.  "  Drusus,"  in  his  Classical  Dictionary,  Dr. 
Charles  Anthon  says  that  Drusus  "  was  born  three  months  after 
his  mother's  marriage  with  Augustus;  "  but  in  art.  "  Livia"  he 
says,  '*  She  had  already  borne  two  sons  to  her  first  husband,  viz., 
Tiberius  and  Drusus,  and  was  six  months  gone  in  pregnancy 


84  IIISTOUY  AND  PIIILOSOPIIY 

THE   MONOGAMY   OF   THE   C^SARS. 

In  order  to  give  some  just  conception  of  Ro- 
man monogamy  at  that  time  when  it  first  came  in 

with  another  child,  which  was  the  only  one  she  ever  had  after 
her  union  with  Augustus,  and  which  died  almost  at  the  moment 
of  its  birth." 

In  art.  "Julia  H.,"  he  calls  her  the  mother  of  Augustus;  and 
in  art.  "  Augustus,"  he  says  his  mother  was  Atia,  the  daughter 
of  Julia. 

In  art.  '■  Julia  IV.,"  he  calls  Scribonia  the  first  wife  of  Au- 
gustus; but  in  art.  "  Augustus,"  he  calls  her  his  third  wife. 

In  art.  "  Messalina,"  he  says  she  was  the  first  wife  of  Clau- 
dius; and  in  art.  "iElia  Psetina,"  he  says  ^Elia  was  the  former 
wife  of  Claudius,  and  that  she  was  repudiated  to  make  way  for 
Messalina.  And,  according  to  Suetonius,  iElia  was,  in  fact,  the 
fourth,  and  Messalina  the  fifth,  of  his  wives. 

In  art.  "  Julius  Caesar,"  he  says  his  first  wife  was  divorced  in 
consequence  of  the  affuir  of  Clodius;  but  in  art.  "  Clodius,"  he 
says  it  was  against  Pompeia  that  Clodius  had  illicit  designs,  and 
in  art.  "  Pompeia,"  he  says  she  was  Caisar's  third  wife,  &c. 

Keightley.  —  In  his  Hist,  of  Rom.  Empire,  p.  11,  he  says, 
Scribonia  was  the  first  wife  of  Augustus;  but  she  was  his  third. 
On  the  same  page  he  says  Tiberius  married  Agrippina,  who  was 
the  younger  daughter  of  Agrippa:  but  Tiberius  did  not  marry 
her,  but  he  married  Vipsania,  her  older  sister;  and  his  brother 
Drusus  married  Agrippina,  and  he  was  the  only  husband  she 
ever  had,  which  was  a  remarkable  circumstance  for  Roman 
ladies  in  those  days. 

On  the  same  page  he  repeats  the  error  of  Anthon  mentioned 


OF  MARRIAGE,  85 

contact  with  Christianity,  and  when  it  began  to 
impose  its  social  system  upon  the  other  nations  of 

above,  —  that  Drusus  was  born  after  his  mother's  marriage  with 
Augustus.    Two  similar  errors  occur  on  p.  13. 

LiDDELL.  —  On  p.  726  of  Dr.  Liddell's  Hist,  of  Rome,  there 
are  three  errors  of  this  kind  within  the  limits  of  twice  as  many 
lines,  viz.,  he  calls  the  name  of  one  of  Augustus's  wives  Clodia  for 
Claudia;  he  says  Scribonia  was  his  second  wife,  for  his  third; 
and  says  that  Livia,  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  to  Augustus, 
was  pregnant  of  her  second  child  instead  of  her  third.  Thus  it 
is  demonstrated  that  very  respectable  modern  historians  are 
accustomed  to  perpetuate  error  by  compiling  and  copying  from 
each  other,  when  the^  should,  every  one  of  them,  go  back  to 
the  original  and  exact  authorities,  and  thus  eliminate  the  truth. 

Messrs.  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York,  have  republished  the 
above  work  of  Dr.  Liddell,  so  faithfaily  as  to  give  us  page  for 
page,  line  for  line,  and  word  for  word,  an  exact  reprint  of  the 
English  edition  by  John  Murray;  reproducing  not  pnly  such 
historical  blunders  as  those  above  noticed,  but  even  the  most 
obvious  typographical  errors;  e.g.,  on  p.  250,  under  the  bust 
of  Scipio  there  is  L.,  for  Lucius  Scipio  Africanus,  instead  of  P., 
for  Publius  Scipio  Africanus ;  and  on  p.  453,  footnote,  we  are 
referred  to  the  end  of  chapter  37,  for  the  bust  of  Ennius,  when 
it  is  not  there,  but  at  the  end  of  chapter  50,  &;c.  Such  exact 
faithfulness  in  following  copy  is  worthy  of  the  well-known  skil- 
fulness  of  the  Chinese  tailor,  who,  when  about  to  make  a  new 
garment  in  European  style,  took  home  an  old  one  for  a  pattern, 
which  he  succeeded  in  imitating  with  exactness,  even  tc  the 
patches. 


86  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Europe  (for  these  two  eveuts  are  quite  synchro- 
nous), I  will  now,  as  briefly  as  possible,  give 
some  account  of  the  domestic  life  and  manners  of 
the  six  imperial  Ciesars,  who  governed  Rome  at 
that  period.  In  this  account  I  shall  enumerate 
their  many  marriages,  and  their  numerous  di- 
vorces and  adoptions,  and  state  their  exact  rela- 
tionship to  each  other.  By  this  means,  I  hope  to 
be  able  to  explain  the  complexity  of  Roman  affini- 
ties, which  has  baffled  the  apprehension  of  so 
many  acute  and  learned  historians,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  exhibit  the  original* nature  and  true 
spirit  of  Roman  monogamy.  "  Ex  pede  Hercu- 
lem  ; "  from  the  Ca3sars  let  us  learn  the  Romans. 

I  should  hesitate  to  pollute  my  pages  with  these 
delineations  of  Roman  manners,  if  the  nature  of 
my  treatise  did  not  require  it.  But  it  is  necessary 
to  the  plan  and  scope  of  this  work  that  the  ana- 
lytical examination  of  the  origin  and  early  history 
of  our  present  marriage  system  should  be  con- 
ducted with  philosophical  exactness,  — an  exactness 
that  requires  explicit  facts,  which  I  have  spared 
no  time  nor  labor  to  search  out,  and  which  I  am 
not  at  liberty  to  withhold,  however  revolting  they 


OF  MARRIAGE.  87 

may  be.  In  order  that  modern  monogamists  may 
clearly  see  the  justice  or  tlie  injustice  of  the 
boasted  claims  of  their  system  to  superior  purity 
and  virtue,  it  is  very  proper  that  they  look  to  the 
rock  whence  they  were  hewn  and  to '  the  hole  of 
the  pit  whence  they  were  digged. 

The  single  family  of  the  Csesars  is  selected  as 
an  example,  not  because  it  is  the  worst  example 
which  those  times  produced,  for,  on  the  contrary, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  that  Sylla  and  Catiline 
and  Clodius  and  Sejanus,  and  the  emperors  Domi- 
tian  and  Commodus  and  Caracalla,  and  many 
others  of  their  contemporaries,  exceeded  the 
Caesars  in  profligacy  ;  but  the  domestic  history  of 
the  latter  family  is  given,  because  it  is  the  most 
authentic,  and  the  most  familiar  to  all  classical 
and  historical  scholars.  Caius  Seutonius  Tran- 
quillus,  commonly  called  Suetonius,  is  the  princi- 
pal authority  for  the  facts  cited  ;  and  his  testi- 
mony is  confirmed  by  all  the  other  authorities  of 
his  own  age,  and  fully  allowed  by  those  of  every 
subsequent  age.  As  he  was  born  A.D.  70,  very 
near  the  time  of  those  whose  lives  he  records ;  as 
he  has  maintained   a  reputation   for  candor  and 


88  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

impartiality ;  as  he  was  private  secretary  to  the 
Emperor  Hadrian,  and  had  access  to  the  secret 
archives  of  the  Caesars,  and  often  alludes  to  their 
handwriting,  —  no  one  has  ever  questioned  either 
his  authenticity  or  his  credibility. 
I  1.  Julius  Cjesar. — Caius  Julius  Caesar,  the  dic- 
tator, married  successively  four  wives,  whose  names 
were,  1.  Cossutia,  2.  Cornelia,  3.  Pompeia,  and,  4. 
Calpurnia.  Cossutia  was  a  wealthy  heiress,  and 
was  married  for  her  money  ;  but  she  was  divorced 
before  Caesar  was  eighteen  years  of  age  (which  was, 
according  to  Roman  law,  during  the  first  year  of 
his  majority),  upon  the  occasion  of  the  triumph  of 
the  party  of  Marius,  to  which  Caesar  had  attached 
himself;  when  the  ambitious  youthful  politician 
and  future  conqueror  Avas  permitted  to  marry 
Cornelia,  the  daughter  of  Cornelius  Cinna  the 
consul,  and  the  friend  and  colleague  of  Marius ; 
by  which  alliance  Caesar  brought  himself  at  once 
into  public  notice,  and  began  to  aspire  to  the 
highest  offices  of  state.  Cornelia  died  young, 
after  having  given  birth  to  Caesar's  only  legitimate 
child,  a  daughter  named  Julia ;  who  was  married 
to  Pompey  the  Great,  at  the  formation  of  the  first 


OF  MAnniAGE.  89 

Triumvirate,  but  who  died  without  issue.  Pom- 
peia,  Caesar's  third  wife,  was  divorced,  in  favor  of 
Calpuruia,  who  survived  him.  He  repudiated 
Pompeia  in  consequence  of  the  affair  of  the  in- 
famous Clodius,  who  had  introduced  himself  into 
Caesar's  house,  disguised  in  female  apparel, 
for  the  purpose  of  assailing  the  virtue  of  Pom- 
peia, at  the  festival  of  the  Bona  Dea,  when,  by 
law  and  by  custom,  it  was  deemed  the  greatest 
sacrilege  for  any  male  to  be  found  upon  the  prem- 
ises. Caisar  at  once  divorced  his  wife,  but 
brought  no  charge  against  Clodius ;  but  he  was 
tried  for  the  sacrilege  upon  the  accusation  of 
Cicero.  When  Caesar  was  called  as  a  witness, 
and  was  asked  why  he  had  put  away  his  wife,  he 
answered  with  the  proud  remark,  that  his  wife's 
chastity  must  not  only  be  free  from  corruption, 
but  must  also  be  above  suspicion.  Yet  Cassar 
himself,  who  made  this  memorable  remark,  was 
excessively  addicted  to  gross  sensuality,  and  was 
the  father  of  several  illegitimate  children.  Sue- 
tonius says  that  he  committed  adultery  with  many 
ladles  of  the  highest  quality  in  Rome ;  among 
whom  he  specifies  Posthumia  the  wife  of  Servius 


90  HISTOItY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Sulpitius,  Lollia  the  wife  of  Aalus  Gabiuius,  Ter- 
tullia  the  wife  of  Marcus  Crassus,  Mutia  the  wife 
of  Pompey  the  Great,  Eunoe  the  wife  of  Bogudes, 
Cleopatra  Queen  of  Egypt,  and  Servilia  the 
mother  of  Marcus  Brutus,  to  whom  he  presented 
a  pearl  costing  six  millions  of  sesterces  (equal 
to  two  hundred  thirty-two  thousand,  one  hundred 
and  seven  dollars)  ;  at  the  same  time  seducing 
her  daughter  Tertia.  Yet  in  another  paragraph 
Suetonius  says  the  only  stain  upon  CoBsar's  chastity 
was  his  having  committed  Sodomy  with  Nicoraedes, 
King  of  Bithynia ;  which  proves  what  has  be- 
fore been  said,  that  the  Romans  did  not  consider 
fornication,  or  even  adultery,  as  constituting  un- 
chastity  in  men,  but  only  in  women ;  and  that 
they  expected  and  permitted  licentiousness  in  the 
most  respectable  men,  as  a  necessary  part  of  their 
social  system  of  monogamy.  It  is  evidently  with 
similar  opinions  of  their  social  system  that  Dr. 
Liddell  thus  sums  up  the  character  of  CiBsar:  — 
"  Thus  died  '  the  foremost  man  in  all  the  world,' 
a  man  who  failed  in  nothing  that  he  attempted. 
He  might,  Cicero  thought,  have  been  a  great 
orator :  his  '  Commentaries '  remain  to  prove  that 


OF  MARRIAGE,  91 

he  was  a  great  writer.  As  a  general,  he  had  few 
superiors  ;  as  a  statesman  and  politician,  no  equal. 
His  morality  in  domestic  life  was  not  better  or 
worse  than  commonly  prevailed  in  those  licentious 
days.  He  indulged  in  profligate  anaours  freely 
and  without  scruple  ;  but  public  opinion  reproached 
him  not  for  this.  He  seldom,  if  ever,  allowed 
pleasure  to  interfere  with  business,  and  here  his 
character  forms  a  notable  contrast  to  that  of 
Sylla,"  &c.  * 

2.  Augustus.  —  He  was  the  grand-nepliew  and 
adopted  son  of  Caesar,  being  the  grandson  of  his 
sister  Julia,  wife  of  Marcus  Atius.  Their  daughter, 
named  Atia  (sometimes  written  Attia  or  Accia), 
married  Cains  Octavius,  and  became  the  mother  of 
Augustus  and  his  sister  Octavia.  His  name,  at 
first,  was  identical  with  that  of  his  father,  Caius 
Octavius  ;  but  Julius  Caesar,  having  failed  of  any 
direct  male  heir,  adopted  him  in  his  last  will  and 
testament,  as  his  son ;  and,  upon  the  publica- 
tian  of  the  will,  he  assumed  his  adopted  father's 

*  Suet.  Vit.  Jul.  Caesar,  par.  40-50.  Liddell's  Hist.  Rome: 
London,  1857;  book  7.  Anthon's  Class.  Diet.,  art.  "Caesar, 
Mutia,"  &c. 


92  mSTORY  AND  PHtLOSOPBt 

family  Dame :  twenty  years  afterwards  the  addi- 
tional name  or  title,  Augustus,  was  conferred  upon 
him  by  vote  of  the  Senate,  and  then  his  full  name 
became  Caius  Julius  Caesar  Octavianus  Augustus. 
Like  his  great-uncle,  Augustus  had  four  wives, 
named,  1.  Servilia  ;  2.  Claudia  ;  3.  Scribonia  ;  and, 
4.  Livia  Drusilla,  whom  he  successively  married 
and  successively  divorced,  except  the  last,  who  sur- 
vived him.  And  like  Caesar  he  had  but  one  child 
—  a  daughter  —  also  named  Julia,  who  was  the 
daughter  of  his  third  wife  Scribonia.  This  wife 
he  divorced  soon  after  he  obtained  supreme  power, 
and  at  the  same  time  married  Livia  Drusilla. 
She  was  already  married  to  Claudius  Nero :  she 
had  borne  her  husband  two  sons,  and  was  then  six 
months  advanced  in  pregnancy  with  her  third  child  ; 
but  Augustus  demanded  her  on  account  of  her 
beauty  and  accomplishments,  and  her  husband 
durst  not  refuse  the  demand.  She  was  therefore 
divorced  from  Nero,  and  married  to  Augustus. 
Her  child  was  born  not  long  afterwards,  and  died 
at  birth.  She  was  at  this  time  twenty  years  of 
age,  and  highly  educated.  She  had  already  trav- 
elled in  foreign  countries,  and,  to  the  fascinations 


OF  MARRIAGE.  93 

of  rare  personal  beauty,  she  added  the  charms  of  a 
cultivated  mind. 

Augustus's  only  child,  Julia,  was  married  three 
times.  Her  first  marriage  was  to  Marcellus,  her 
cousin,  only  son  of  Octavia,  her  father's  sister. 
Marcellus  died  young,  much  lamented,  and  left  no 
issue.  Augustus  had,  some  time  before,  compelled 
Agrippa,  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  to  di- 
vorce his  wife  Pompeia,  and  marry  Marcella,  his 
sister  Octavia's  daughter  ;  but  now,  on  the  death  of 
Marcellus,  he  commanded  Agrippa  to  divorce  his 
niece,  Marcellus's  sister,  and  marry  his  daughter, 
Marcellus's  widow.  By  this  second  marriage,  Julia 
had  five  children,  three  of  whom  were  sons,  the 
youngest  of  which  was  born  after  his  father's  death 
and  Jiis  mother's  third  marriage,  and  was  named 
Agrippa  Posthumus :  the  other  two  sons  were 
called  Caius  and  Lucius.  This  final  marriage  of 
Julia  was  to  Tiberius  Nero,  the  stepson  of  Augus- 
tus, and  was  without  issue :  it  will  be  alluded  to 
again  under  the  notice  of  Tiberius.  Julia  was  one 
of  the  most  dissolute  Avomen  of  that  dissolute  age. 
And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  age  and  the 
monogamous  system  were  even  more  dissolute  thaa 


94  niSTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

the  women,  and  caused  them  to  become  so  when 
they  were  not  so.  The  chastity  of  the  Roman  ma- 
trons and  virgins  was  prized  and  honored  as  highly 
by  themselves,  and  by  their  husbands  and  fathers 
and  brothers,  as  it  has  ever  been  among  any  people 
in  the  world  ;  as  the  legends  of  Lucretia  and  of 
Virginia  and  others  can  testify.  The  ordinances 
of  God  and  of  Nature  in  behalf  of  female  purity 
were  enforced  among  them,  both  by  their  ancient 
traditions  and  by  their  current  laws  ;  and  all  com- 
bined to  cause  them  to  preserve  their  chastity  to 
the  last  possible  extremity.  But  that  extremity 
had,  with  many  of  them,  been  reached.  The  un- 
bounded license  of  the  other  sex,  permitted  by 
public  opinion  to  be  practised  with  the  utmost  im- 
punity ;  the  scant  and.  insufficient  opportunities 
for  lawful  marriages,  and  the  frequent,  unjust,  and 
arbitrary  divorces  from  those  marriages  ;  in  fine, 
the  whole  theory  of  monogamy,  —  finally  drove  the 
women  to  desperate  recklessness  and  ruin.  It  had 
been  Julia's  happy  lot  to  be  the  wife  of  two  hon- 
orable men,  both  eminent  for  their  manliness,  — 
Marcellus  and  Agrippa.  She  had  also  been  the 
happy  mother  of  five  healthful  children.   And  now, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  95 

while  still  young,  she  found  herself  hastily  and  for- 
cibly united  to  a  man  against  his  will ;  and  that 
man  a  monster  and  a  beast.  It  is  not  strange  that 
she  fell,  nor  that,  in  her  fall,  she  dragged  down 
many  others  with  her.  Her  exalted  rank  easily  se- 
duced some  of  the  noblest  men  of  Rome  to  become 
her  paramours.  "  And  she  became  at  length  so 
devoid  of  shame  and  prudence  as  to  carouse  and 
revel  openly,  at  night,  in  the  Forum,  and  even  on 
the  Rostra.  Augustus  had  already  had  a  suspicion 
that  her  mode  of  life  was  not  quite  correct,  and 
when  convinced  of  the  full  extent  of  her  depravity, 
his  anger  knew  no  bounds.  He  communicated  his 
domestic  misfortune  to  the  Senate  ;  he  banished  his 
dissolute  daughter  to  the  Isle  of  Pandateria,  on  the 
coast  of  Campania,  whither  she  was  accompanied 
by  her  mother  Scribonia.  He  forbade  her  there 
the  use  of  wine  and  of  all  delicacies  in  food  or 
dress,  and  prohibited  any  person  to  visit  her  with- 
out his  special  permission.  He  caused  a  bill  of 
divorce  to  be  sent  her  in  the  name  of  her  husband 
Tiberius,  of  whose  letters  of  intercession  for  her  he 
took  no  heed.  He  constantly  rejected  all  the  solici- 
tations of  the  people  for  her  recall ;  and  when,  one 


96  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

time,  they  were  extremely  urgent,  he  openly  prayed 
that  they  might  have  wives  and  daughters  like 
her."  Her  confidential  servant  and  freedwoman, 
Phoebe,  having  hanged  herself  when  her  mistress's 
profligacy  was  made  known,  Augustus  declared 
that  he  would  rather  be  the  father  of  Phoebe  than 
of  Julia.  This  treatment  of  his  daughter,  and  this 
remark  concerning  her,  is  another  confirmation  of 
the  different  regard  had  in  those  times  to  the  un- 
chaste conduct  of  women  and  of  men  ;  for  Augustus 
himself  was  a  seducer  and  an  adulterer,  and  was 
as  profligate  as  his  uncle  Julius.  Suetonius  de- 
clares, that  he  constantly  employed  men  to  pimp 
for  him,  and  that  they  took  such  freedom  in  select- 
ing the  most  beautiful  women  for  his  embraces, 
that  they  compelled  "  both  matrons  and  ripe  vir- 
gins to  strip  for  a  complete  examination  of  their 
persons."  He  also  says,  upon  the  authority  of  Marc 
Antony,  that  at  an  entertainment  at  his  house,  '^  he 
once  took  the  wife  of  a  man  of  consular  rank  from 
the  table,  in  the  presence  of  her  husband,  into  his 
bedchamber,  and  that  he  brought  her  again  to  the 
entertainment  with  her  ears  very  red  and  her  hair 
in  great  disorder,"  plainly  implying  that  every  one 
could  see  that  he  had  ravished  her. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  97 

But  it  is  the  judgment  of  that  distinguished  scholar 
and  historian,  Dr.  Liddell,  that  in  these  "  and  other 
less  pardonable  immoralities  there  was  nothing  to 
shock  the  feelings  of  Romans  ;  "  and  Keightley  thus 
sums  up  his  character.  "  In  his  public  charac- 
ter, as  sovereign  of  the  Roman  empire,  few  princes 
will  be  found  more  deserving  of  praise  than  Augus- 
tus. He  cannot  be  justly  charged  with  a  single 
cruel,  or  even  harsh  action,  in  the  course  of  a  peri- 
od of  forty-four  years.  On  the  contrary,  he  seems 
in  every  act  to  have  had  the  welfare  of  the  people 
at  heart.  In  return,  never  was  prince  more  entirely 
beloved  by  all  orders  of  his  subjects  ;  and  the  title 
*  Father  of  his  Country,'  so  spontaneously  bestowed 
upon  him,  is  but  one  among  many  proofs  of  the 
sincerity  of  their  affection."  "  He  was  surrounded 
by  no  pomp  ;  no  guards  attended  him  ;  no  officers  of 
the  household  were  to  be  seen  in  his  modest  dwell- 
ing ;  he  lived  on  terms  of  familiarity  with  his 
friends ;  he  appeared  like  any  other  citizen,  as  a 
witness  in  courts  of  justice,  and  in  the  senate  gave 
his  vote  as  an  ordinary  member.  He  was  plain  and 
simple  in  his  mode  of  living,  using  only  the  most 
ordinary  food,  and  wearing  OQ  clothes  but  what 
7 


98  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

were  woven  and  made  by  his  wife,  sister,  and 
daughter.  In  all  his  domestic  relations  he  was 
kind  and  affectionate  ;  he  was  a  mild  and  indulgent 
master,  and  an  attached  and  constant  friend."  * 

3.  Tiberius.  —  Tiberius  was  the  son  of  Claudius 
Nero  and  Livia  Drusilla.  He  was  not  at  all  related 
by  blood  to  the  Julian  family,  but  belonged  by  birth 
to  the  ancient  Claudian  gens ;  being  allied  to  the 
former  family  only  by  marriage  and  adoption.  His 
mother  married  Augustus  when  he  was  five  years 
of  age  ;  he  himself  married  Julia,  Augustus's  only 
daughter,  when  he  was  thirty  ;  and  Augustus  adopted 
him  as  his  son  when  he  was  forty-five  :  so  that  he  was 
at  once  the  step-son,  the  son-in-law,  and  the  adopted 
son  of  Augustus.  His  name,  at  first,  was  Tiberius 
Claudius  Drusus  Nero  ;  to  which,  after  his  adoption 
by  Augustas,  he  added  simply  Cassar.  Augustus, 
with  his  characteristic  prudence,  as  soon  as  he  per^ 
ceived  that  direct  heirs  in  the  male  line  were  likely 
to  fail  him,  began  to  make  provision  for  the  per- 
petuation of  his  name  and  fortune,  as  well  as  for 


*  Snot.  Vi\  A-ig.  par.  60-69;  Liddell'sHIst.  of  Rome,book  7; 
Keight "jap.,  chaps.  1,  2. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  99 

the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  the  empire,  by  mak- 
ing sons  by  adoption.  He  first  adopted  his  two 
oldest  grandsons,  Cains  and  Lucius  Agrippa,  in  their 
early  childhood ;  but  they  both  died  during  the 
lifetime  of  Augustus,  and  left  no  issue,  —  Lucius  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  years  ;  and  two  years  afterwards, 
Cains,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four.*  Drusus  Nero, 
the  younger  brother  of  Tiberius,  and  the  favorite 
step-son  of  Augustus,  had  also  died  before  them  ;  but 
he  had  left  two  sons,  Germanicus  and  Claudius. 
These  with  Tiberius,  and  his  only  son  Drusus,  by 
his  first  wife  Vipsania,  and  Agrippa  Posthumus, 
the  only  remaining  son  of  Julia,  were  all  the  males 
allied  to  Augustus.  Upon  the  death  of  Caius,  there- 
fore, A.D.  6,  Augustus  adopted  both  Agrippa  Pos- 
thumus and  Tiberius,  and  caused  Tiberius  at  the 
same  time  to  adopt  Germanicus  :  so  that  all  the 
males  of  the  family  then  became  Caesars,  except 
Claudius  Nero  ;  but  he  was  considered  foolish,  and 
was  not  included.     Tiberius,  as  has  been  observed, 

*  Caius  married  Livilla,  sister  to  Germanicus,  and  grand- 
niece  to  Augustus,  but  had  no  offspring;  his  widow  afterwards 
married  Drusus,  son  of  Tiberius, by  whom  she  had  two  children, 
Tiberius  and  Julia. 


100  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

was,  at  this  timo,  forty-five  years  of  age  ;  and  each 
of  the  three  young  men,  Agrippa,  Germanicus,  and 
Drusus,  was  about  nineteen. 

Tiberius  was  married  twice ;  first  to  Vipsania, 
eldest  daughter  of  Agrippa,  and  after  divorcing  her, 
as  usual,  he  married  Julia,  Agrippa's  widow.  It 
is  but  justice  to  Tiberius,  to  say  that  both  the  di- 
vorce and  the  marriage  were  hateful  to  him,  and 
were  consummated  only  upon  the  order  of  Augus- 
tus. He  had  lived  happily  with  Vipsania,  who  was 
the  mother  of  his  only  son,  and  who  was  then  preg- 
nant with  her  second  child,  while  Julia  was  also 
pregnant  with  her  fiflh  child  by  Agrippa. 

Upon  the  death  of  Augustus,  Tiberius  command- 
ed his  step-brother  Agrippa  Posthumus  to  be  put  to 
death,  and  assumed  sole  command  of  the  empire. 
His  first  order  was  but  a  sample  of  his  government ; 
for  he  soon  became  one  of  the  most  odious  tyrants 
that  ever  cursed  the  world.  His  vices  were  of  the 
most  infamous  character,  and  comprised  all  that  are 
alluded  to  in  the  first  chapter  of  Paul's  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  and  for  wliich  the  ancient  city  of  Sodom 
was  destroyed  by  fire.  In  order  to  give  loose  rein 
to  Ins  wors§  than  beastly  propensities,  he  retir$4 


OF  MARRIAGE.  101 

from  Rome  to  that  lovely  sequestered  islacd  in  the 
Bay  of  Naples,  which  was  then  called  Capreae, 
and  which  in  modern  Italian  is  now  named  Capri. 
"But,"  says  Keightley,  "  this  delicious  retreat  was 
speedily  converted  by  the  aged  prince  into  a  den  of 
infamy,  such  as  has  never,  perhaps,  found  its  equal ; 
and  it  almost  chills  the  blood  to  read  the  details  of 
the  horrid  practices  in  which  he  indulged  amid 
the  rocks  of  Capreae."  Like  all  the  other  Caesars, 
Tiberius  left  no  son.  His  son  Drusus  was  married, 
and  had  a  son  and  a  daughter  ;  but  he  \yas  poisoned 
by  his  own  wife  Livilla,  and  died  during  his  father's 
lifetime.  The  grandson  named  Tiberius,  and  the 
grand-daughter  named  Julia,  both  survived  him. 
His  adopted  son  Germanicus,  after  achieving  an 
excellent  reputation  as  a  man  and  a  military  com- 
mander, had  also  died,  about  five  years  after  the 
accession  of  Tiberius,  at  the  age  of  thirty-four  years, 
attributing  his  death  to  slow  poison  secretly  admin- 
istered by  the  command  of  his  adopted  father. 
Germanicus  left  nine  children ;  but  all  the  sons 
were  destroyed  before  the  death  of  Tiberius,  except 
one,  named  Caius,  but  commonly  called  Caligula. 
Tiberius  therefore  left  two  male  heirs  only,  —  Caius 


102  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Caligula,  his  grandsou  by  adoption,  and  Tiberius, 
his  grandson  by  birlh.* 

4.  Caligula.  —  Tiberius,  by  his  last  will,  had  ap- 
pointed his  two  grandsons  his  joint  and  equal  heirs  ; 
but  Germanicus,  the  father  of  Caligula,  had  always 
been  greatly  beloved  by  the  people,  while  Tiberius  had 
been  hated.  The  will  was  therefore  unanimously  set 
aside,  and  the  sole  power  conferred  upon  Caligula. 
Thus  was  the  line  of  the  Csesars  still  continued  by 
adoption.  Caligula  was  born  A.D.  12,  and  became 
emperor  at  twenty-five  years  of  age,  A.D.  37.  Hie 
was  married  four  times.  His  wives'  names  were, 
1.  Junia  Claudilla ;  2.  Livia  Orestilla ;  3.  Lollia 
PauUina  ;  and,  4.  Milonia  Caesonia.  The  first  died, 
the  next  two  were  divorced,  the  last  survived  him. 
Soon  after  the  death  of  Junia,  which  was  some 
time  before  he  attained  the  supreme  power,  he  t6ok 
I  Ennia,  the  wife  of  Macro,  as  his  favorite  mistress, 
promising  to  procure  a  divorce  from  her  husband, 
and  to  marry  her  himself  when  he  should  attain 
the  empire  ;  and  Macro  appears  to  have  acquiesced 
in  this    arrangement,  selling  his  wife's  virtue  and 

*  Suet.;  Keightley;  Authon. 


OF  MARMIAGE.  lOi 

the  honor  of  his  house  for  such  rewards  and  emolu- 
ments as  Caligula  was  pleased  to  accord  to  him. 
But  in  the  second  year  of  his  administration,  instead 
of  fulfilling  his  engagements  to  Ennia  and  her  hus- 
band, he  neglected  and  disgraced  them ;  so  that 
they  both  committed  suicide. 

Caligula  then  took  his  own  sister  Drusilla,  and 
lived  in  incest  with  her,  having  forced  her  husband, 
Lucius  Cassius,  to  divorce  her  for  that  purpose ; 
but,  in  order  to  cover  the  affair,  he  caused  her  to  bo 
married  to  one  of  his  attendants,  Marcus  Lepidus, 
his  cousin,  with  whom  he  was  at  the  same  time 
practising  the  still  more  horrid  and  unnatural  crime 
of  Sodomy.  Upon  the  death  of  this  sister,  which 
occurred  during  the  same  year,  he  mourned  for  her 
with  the  most  extravagant  grief,  and  caused  her 
henceforth  to  be  worshipped  as  a  goddess  ;  building 
a  temple  and  consecrating  priests  in  her  honor. 
His  own  solemn  oath  ever  after  was,  "  By  the  divin- 
ity of  Drusilla." 

He  next  married  Livia  Orestilla  ;  and  in  this 
strange  and  cruel  manner.  He  had  been  invited  to 
the  wedding-feast  of  Caius  Fiso,  a  man  belonging 
to  one  of  the  noblest  families  of  Rome,  w  hose  bride 


104  mSTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

was  this  same  Livia.  Caligula  accepted  the  invi- 
tation ;  the  marriage  ceremony  took  place,  and  the 
feast  was  at  its  height,  when,  struck  with  the  beauty 
of  the  bride,  he  resolved  to  appropriate  her  to  himself, 
and  saying  to  Piso,  "  Do  not  touch  my  wife,"  he  took 
her  home  with  him.  The  next  day  he  caused  proc- 
lamation to  be  made  for  the  information  of  the 
Roman  public,  that  he  had  purveyed  himself  a  wife 
after  the  manner  of  Augustus.  It  is  not  strange 
that  under  such  circumstances  he  did  not  find  her 
an  agreeable  consort,  for  her  affections  had  been 
given  to  Piso,  and  with  him  only  could  she  be  happy. 
He  therefore  divorced  her  again,  within  three  days 
of  her  marriage,  but  would  not  permit  her  to  have 
her  former  husband. 

The  occasion  of  his  marrying  his  next  wife,  Lollia 
Paullina,  was  equally  strange,  but  quite  different. 
He  heard  some  one  extol  the  beauty  of  her  grand- 
mother, and  was  inflamed  with  passion  to  enjoy 
hers.  She  was  already  married  to  Memmius  Reg- 
ulus,  and  was  then  away  from  Rome,  in  a  foreign 
province,  with  her  husband  ;  but  Caligula  sent  orders 
to  Regulus  to  divorce  his  wife,  ordered  her  home 
and  married  her.     He  lived  with  her  about  a  year, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  105 

when  he  divorced  her  for  her  barreriness  ;  and  then 
married  his  last  wife,  Caesonia,  with  whom  he  had 
already  been  having  illicit  intercourse  for  many 
months,  and  who  was  now  far  advanced  in  preg- 
nancy. She  was  a  woman  of  infamous  character, 
and  had  had  three  illegitimate  children  before  ;  but 
he  married  her,  and  she  was  very  soon  delivered  of 
a  daughter,  which  was  Caligula's  only  child. 

During  most  of  this  time,  since  the  death  of 
Drusilla,  he  was  living  in  incest  with  both  his  other 
sisters,  Agrippina  and  Livilla,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  would  prostitute  them  to  his  male  favorites, 
the  ministers  of  his  more  heathenish  lusts.  Sueto- 
nius says,  that,  in  addition  to  these  incests  and  adul^ 
teries  already  specified,  he  debauched  nearly  every 
lady  of  rank  in  Rome  ;  whom  he  was  accustomed 
to  invite,  along  with  their  husbands,  to  a  feast :  he 
would  then  examine  them,  as  they  passed  his  couch 
one  after  another,  as  one  would  examine  female 
slaves  when  about  to  purchase  ;  and  after  supper 
he  would  retire  to  his  bedchamber,  and  then  send 
for  any  lady  present  that  he  liked  best.. 

During  his  administration  public  prostitutes  paid 
twelve  and  a  half  per  cent  of  their  fees  into  the 


106  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

imperial  treasury ;  and  in  order  to  increase  this 
branch  of  the  revenue  he  opened  a  brothel  in  his 
own  palace,  filled  it  with  respectable  (?)  women, 
and  sent  out  criers  into  the  forum  to  advertise  it, 
and  invite  the  people  to  resort  to  it. 

Caligula  was  slain  by  the  officers  of  his  own 
guard,  in  the  twenty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  after 
governing  the  Roman  world  less  than  four  years. 
During  the  first  year  of  his  administration  he  had 
first  adopted  and  then  murdered  the  younger 
Tiberius  Caesar,  then  about  seventeen  years  of 
age,  who  left  no  issue  ;  and  a  few  hours  after  his 
own  death  his  wife  Caesonia  was  slain,  and  also 
their  infant  daughter,  who  had  its  little  brains 
dashed  out  against  a  wall :  so  the  last  of  the 
Caesars  seemed  to  have  perished.  But  there  was 
one  old  man  left,  who,  if  he  was  not  a  Caesar,  was 
certainly  related  to  all  the  Caesars,  and  it  was 
determined  to  make  him  a  Caesar,  and  raise  him 
to  the  supreme  power.  This  old  man  was  Clau- 
dius Nero. 

5.  Claudius.  —  He  was  the  uncle  of  Caligula, 
and  the  nephew  of  Tiberius.  His  name  at  first 
had  been  Tiberius  Claudius  Drusus  Nero,  to  which 


OF  MAURI  AGE.  lOT 

he  now  added  that  of  Caesar.  He  was  married  six 
times.  His  wives'  names  were,  1.  JEmilia  Lepida  ; 
2.  Livia  Medulllna  Camilla ;  3.  Plaiitia  Urgulli- 
nilla  ;  4.  ^lia  Psetina  ;  5.  Valeria  Messalina  ;  aud^ 
6.  Agrippina.  Of  these,  the  first,  third,  and  fourth 
were  divorced,  the  second  died,  the  fifth  was  exe- 
cuted, and  the  last  survived  him*  JElia  Paetina, 
the  fourth,  was  divorced  soon  after  Claudius 
obtained  the  empire,  in  order  to  make  way  for 
Messalina,  whose  principal  recommendation  was 
that  she  had  already  become  pregnant  by  him. 
They  were  accordingly  married  :  the  child  was  born, 
and  was  a  boy,  whom  they  named  Britannicus. 
She  afterwards  bore  him  a  daughter  called  Octavia. 
Messalina*s  lust  and  cruelty  were  so  unbounded, 
that  her  name  has  become  the  syuonyme  of  every 
thing  most  vile  and  detestable  in  the  female  charac- 
ter. She  has  been  called  the  Roman  Jezebel ;  but 
the  comparison  is  an  injustice  to  the  Samaritan 
queen.  She  was  as  much  more  wicked  than 
Jezebel  as  Roman  monogamy  is  more  impure  than 
Jewish  polygamy.  Her  husband's  chief  officers 
became  her  adulterers,  and  were  allied  with  her 
in  all  her  abominations.     She  cast  an  eye  of  lust 


1(>8  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

on  the  principal  men  in  Rome,  and  whom  she  could 
not  seduce  to  gratify  her  vile  propensities  she 
would  contrive  to  destroy.  She  was  so  excessive 
in  her  sensuality,  that  she  often  required  the 
services  of  the  strongest  and  most  vigorous  men 
to  satisfy  her  lusts ;  and  often  for  that  reason 
chose  gladiators  and  slaves :  but  such  persons 
would  not  always  venture  to  incur  the  risk  of 
discovery,  and  then  she  would  make  her  stupid 
husband  the  unwitting  broker  of  her  adulterous 
pleasures.  As  an  example  of  this  mode  of 
procedure,  in  such  cases,  it  is  recorded  that 
"  when  Mnester,  a  celebrated  dancer,  refused  to 
yield  to  her  solicitations  or  her  threats,  she  pro- 
cured a  written  order  from  Claudius,  commanding 
him  to  do  whatever  she  should  require.  Mnester 
then  complied.  The  same  was  the  case  with  many 
others,  who  believed  they  were  obeying  the  orders 
of  the  prince  when  they  were  yielding  to  the  libidi- 
nous desires  of  his  wife." 

But  she  was  not  content  with  being  infamous 
herself,  she  determined  to  make  others  so  ;  compel- 
ling many  respectable  married  women  to  prostitute 
themselves,  even  in  the  palace,  and  in  the  presence 


OF  MARRIAGE.  109 

of  their  husbands,  who  were  poAverless  to  prevent 
it,  for  she  brutally  destroyed  those  who  would  not 
acquiesce  in  their  wives'  dishonor.  Meantime  her 
own  excesses  were  unknown  by  Claudius  ;  for  she 
caused  some  one  of  her  maids  to  occupy  her  place 
in  his  bed,  and  purchased  by  rewards,  or  antici- 
pated by  murder,  those  who  could  give  him  informa- 
tion. At  length  her  enormities  were  discovered 
and  brought  to  light  in  this  manner,  —  a  manner  so 
strange  and  unnatural,  that  the  grave  historian 
Tacitus  expressed  his  doubts  whether  posterity 
could  be  made  to  believe  that  aoy  woman  could  be 
so  wicked.  Messalina  had  set  her  heart  upon 
Caius  Silius,  the  consul  elect,  who  was  esteemed 
the  handsomest  man  in  Rome.  In  order  to  obtain 
sole  possession  of  him  she  drove  his  wife  Juuia  out 
of  his  house  ;  and  Silius,  knowing  that  to  refuse 
her  would  be  his  destruction,  while  by  compliance 
he  might  possibly  escape,  yielded  to  his  fate.  But 
the  infatuated  adulteress  became  so  reckless  that  she 
disdained  concealment  and  came  openly  to  visit 
him,  heaping  wealth  and  honors  upon  him,  and 
transferring  the  slaves  and  the  treasures  of  the 
prince  to  his  bQ^se,     Silius  then  saw  th^t  he  wa§ 


110  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

so  deep  in  guilt  that  either  he  or  Claudius  must 
perish,  and  proposed  to  Messalina  to  murder  her 
husband  and  seize  the  supreme  power.  She  hesi- 
tated ;  not  from  regard  to  her  husband,  but  from 
the  fear  that  when  Silius  should  bo  invested  with 
the  empire  he  would  east  her  off.  She  therefore 
proposed,  as  an  amendment  to  his  plan,  that  they 
should  be  married  first,  and  then  murder  the  prince 
and  seize  the  empire  afterwards.  This  plan  was 
agreed  to  ;  and  while  Claudius  was  absent  from  the 
city  to  perform  a  sacrifice  at  Ostia,  when  he  was 
building  the  new  harbor  there,  they  were  publicly 
married,  in  due  form,  and  with  much  ceremony. 
But  their  own  attendants  w^ere  shocked.  They  in- 
formed the  prince ;  and  the  whole  plot  was  dis- 
covered and  the  guilty  parties  put  to  death. 

Claudius  then  took  for  his  sixth  and  last  wife  his 
brother's  daughter  Agrippina  ;  and  as  such  a  union 
was  regarded  as  incestuous  by  the  laws  and  customs 
of  the  Romans,  Claudius  first  repaired  to  the  sen- 
ate-house, and  caused  a  new  law  to  be  passed  legal- 
izing marriages  between  uncles  and  nieces,  and 
then  formally  espoused  her.  Agrippina,  the  new 
imperial  consort,  was  sister  to   the  late    emperor 


OF  MARRIAGE.  Ill 

Caligula ;  and  besides  having  lived  in  incest  with 
him,  she  had  been  married  twice  before.  By  her 
first  husband,  Cneius  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  she 
had  had  a  son,  named  Lucius,  who  was  nine  years 
of  age  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  with  Claudius, 
and  three  years  older  than  his  only  son  Britannicus. 
To  promote  the  interests  of  her  own  son  Lucius, 
and  to  destroy  Britannicus,  was  now  the  ruling  pas- 
sion of  Agrippina  ;  to  gratify  which  she  paused  at 
nothing.  Yet  she  was  not,  like  Messalina,  natural- 
ly inclined  to  licentiousness  ;  but  in  order  to  win 
the  influence  and  assistance  of  powerful  men  for 
promoting  her  ambitious  designs  in  behalf  of  her 
son,  she  stooped  so  low  as  to  prostitute  herself  to 
thejr  lusts,  when  they  could  not  be  purchased  by 
any  other  means  at  her  command.  At  first  she 
managed  to  have  Octavia,  the  sister  of  Britannicus, 
divorced  from  Silanus,  to  whom  she  had  been  be- 
trothed, and  married  to  her  son  Lucius,  and,  in  a 
year  or  two  afterwards,  to  have  Lucius  adopted  by 
Claudius  as  his  son.  Three  years  afterwards 
she  procured  poison  from  the  notorious  Locusta, 
and  put  her  husband,  the  Emperor  Claudius,  to 
death,  in  the  sixty-fourth  year  of  his   a£re-  t^f*^v 


112  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


he  had  governed  Rome  a  little  less  than  fourteen 
years.* 

G.Nero. — Agrippina  carefully  concealed  the 
death  of  Claudius  until  secure  measures  had  been 
taken  for  setting  aside  Britannicus,  and  for  the  suc- 
cession of  her  son  ;  when  the  death  was  announced 
and  the  new  emperor  proclaimed.  Nero  was  suc- 
cessively the  grand-nephew,  the  step-son,  the  son 
in-law,  and  the  adopted  son  of  Claudius ;  and,  by 
adoption,  the  great-grandson  of  Tiberius  ;  being 
son  of  Agrippina,  daughter  of  Germanicus,  adopted 
son  of  Tiberius.  He  was  also,  by  birth,  the  grand- 
nephew  of  Augustus,  by  the  collateral  female  line  ; 
his  father,  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  being  son  of 
Antonia  Major,  eldest  daughter  of  Octavia,.  sister 
of  Augustus.  His  name,  at  first,  was  Lucius 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus  ;  but  upon  his  adoption  by 
Claudius,  into  the  Julian  family,  he  took  the  name 
of  Nero  Claudius  Caesar. 

He  was  married  seven  times.  The  names  of  his 
consorts  were,  1 .  Octavia  ;  2.  Poppaea  Sabina  ;  3. 
Octavia  again  ;  4.  Poppaea  again  ;  5.  Statilia  Mes- 

*  Suet,  Vit,  Claud. ;  Tacitus  Ann. ;  Keight. ;  Anthon. 


OF  MARRIAGE,  113 

salina  ;  6.  Sporus  ;  and,  7.  Dorypliorus.  It  will 
readily  be  seen,  from  this  list,  that  his  marriages 
and  divorces  were  more  numerous  than  his  brides, 
and  that  the  last  two  names  are  those  of  males. 

Nero  had  no  affection  for  his  first  wife,  the  chaste 
and  modest  Octavia,  whom  he  had  married  from 
policy,  and  not  for  love  :  and  his  mother,  the  ambi- 
tious Agrippina,  who  loved  power  so  much,  was 
pleased  with  this  indifference  ;  for  she  hoped  to 
maintain  an  undivided  influence  over  him,  and 
through  him  to  rule  the  world.  But  in  the  second 
year  of  his  administration  he  conceived  a  violent 
passion  for  an  Asiatic  freedwoman  named  Acte ; 
a  passion  which  his  preceptor,  the  celebrated  phi- 
losopher Seneca,  and  his  other  councillors  of  state, 
encouraged  ;  permitting  him  to  take  her  as  his  ac- 
knowledged mistress,  without  rebuke,  hoping  that 
this  attachment  would  keep  him  from  a  life  of 
promiscuous  licentiousness  and  from  debauching 
women  of  rank.  But  Agrippina  was  furious  ;  not 
because  Acte  was  a  low-bred  woman  (though  this 
was  the  excuse  for  her  opposition),  but  she  felt  that 
her  own  power  would  be  diminished  by  her :  and 
she  threatened  that  if  he  did  not  give  her  up,  she 

8 


114  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPHT 

would  herself  abandon  him,  and  would  set  up  Bri- 
tannicus ;  and,  as  the  daughter  of  the  beloved 
Germanicus,  would  appeal  to  the  army  against  her 
son,  in  Britannicus*  behalf.  This  was  a  powerful 
argument,  and  Nero  knew  that  his  mother  was 
capable  of  any  thing  to  maintain  her  power ;  but 
he  resolved,  that,  instead  of  giving  up  his  mistress, 
he  would  murder  his  innocent  brother.  He  pro- 
cured poison  from  Locusta  and  gave  it  him,  but  it 
proved  too  weak  ;  he  then  sent  for  Locusta  again, 
and  reproached  her  and  beat  her,  and  bade  her 
prepare  a  stronger  dose.  She  obeyed  him ;  and, 
having  proved  the  potency  of  the  venom  upon  a 
kid  and  a  pig,  he  had  it  given  to  Britannicus,  in 
some  cokl  water,  at  dinner.  Its  effect  was  instan- 
taneous, and  the  poor  boy  dropped  down  dead. 
Nero  carelessly  remarked  to  the  company  that  he 
had  been  subject  to  fits  from  infancy,  and.  would 
soon  recover.  Agrippina  and  Octavia  were  struck 
with  terror,  and  said  nothing ;  the  latter,  young  as 
she  was,  having  learned  to  suppress  her  feelings, 
and  the  former  perceiving  that  her  son  was  fast 
becoming  her  superior  both  in  cruelty  and  in  craft. 
Nero  next  became  enamored  of  Foppaea  Sabina, 


OF  MAURI  AGE.  115 

a  lady  of  great  beauty  and  of  noble  birth,  who 
had  been  divorced  from  her  first  husband,  Cris- 
pin us,  and  was  then  married  to  her  second,  Mar- 
cus Otho  ;  but  Otho  was  sent  out  as  governor  of 
the  distant  province  of  Portugal,  and  Nero  gave 
himself  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  his  adulterous 
passion.  Then  Agrippina  became  more  furious 
than  ever,  for  she  saw,  that  if  he  should  divorce 
Octavia,  and  marry  Poppaea,  her  own  influence 
would  be  gone  forever.  But  she  set  at  work  in  a 
different  manner  than  before  ;  for  such  was  her 
insane  love  of  power,  that,  in  order  to  retain  her 
influence  over  her  son,  she  began  herself  to  pander 
to  his  vices,  diverting  and  distracting  his  mind 
with  a  succession  of  beautiful  ladies,  offering  her 
purse,  and  the  use  of  her  own  apartments  for  his 
private  assignations,  and  even  attempting  to 
seduce  him  to  unnatural  incest  with  herself;  and 
nothing  but  the  fear  of  the  army  and  of  the  peo- 
ple prevented  them  from  the  consummation  of  that 
abominable  crime.  Still  the  influence  of  Poppasa 
increased ;  and  so  did  Agrippina's  hatred  and 
jealousy  of  her,  until  at  length  Nero  resolved 
upon  the  crime  of  matricide,  which  he  effected  in 


116  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

the  most  barbarous  manner.  He  first  attempted 
to  drown  her,  in  a  manner  that  might  appear 
accidental,  by  sending  her  to  sea  in  an  unsea- 
worthy  vessel  laden  with  lead  ;  the  deck  of  which 
was  to  give  way  at  the  proper  time,  and  the 
vessel  itself  to  fall  in  pieces.  She  went  on  board, 
and  the  deck  fell,  with  its  freight  of  lead,  as  was 
expected  ;  but  she  was  saved  by  the  devotion  of 
her  attendants.  He  then  sent  assassins  to  shed 
her  blood.  When  they  entered  her  apartment, 
and  one  of  them  drew  his  sword,  she  exposed  her 
w^omb,  and  cried  out,  "  Strike  here  :  "  he  obeyed, 
and  thus  she  perished.  But  it  was  only  after  the 
lapse  of  three  years  more,  that  he  divorced  the 
virtuous  Octavia,  by  whose  alliance  he  had  ob- 
tained the  empire,  and  who  was  greatly  beloved 
by  the  people.  He  effected  her  divorce,  however, 
and  married  Poppaea ;  but  the  murmurs  of  the 
people  were  so  alarming,  that,  in  a  short  time,  he 
divorced  Poppaea,  and  married  Octavia  the  second 
time.  But  his  affections  were  still  unchanged, 
and  he  at  length  induced  Anicetus,  the  assassin 
that  had  slain  his  mother,  to  make  oath  that 
Octavia  had  committed  adultery  with  him ;  and, 


OF  MARRIAGE,  117 

although  nobody  beh'eved  the  wretch,  this  served 
as  a  pretext  for  divorcing  her  again.  She  was 
then  banished  to  the  usual  place,  the  Island  of 
Pandataria,  where  she  was  soon  afterwards  put 
to  death,  at  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  her 
head  sent  as  a  present  to  Poppaja  ;  to  whom  Nero 
was  then  married  the  second  time.  Soon  after 
this  marriage,  to  his  great  joy,  she  bore  him  a 
daughter,  his  first  and  only  child,  which  lived, 
however,  but  a  few  months. 

It  was  the  next  year  after  the  birth  of  this 
infant,  that  Rome  was  burnt  [A.D.  65].  The 
loss  of  lives,  as  well  as  of  property,  was  very 
great.  The  streets  of  the  city  were  narrow  and 
crooked,  and  the  flames  spread  so  rapidly,  that 
escape  was  difficult.  The  fire  raged  six  days. 
Five-sevenths  of  the  city  was  laid  waste.  Nero 
has  often  been  charged  with  having  caused  the 
fires  himself ;  but  the  charge  has  never  been  proved. 
He  was  strongly  suspected  at  the  time,  and,  in 
order  to  divert  suspicion  from  himself,  he  laid 
the  blame  upon  the  innocent  Christians.  They 
had  become  already  numerous  in  the  city,  and 
were  generally  hated  and   despised.     They  were 


118  mSTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHt 

put  to  death,  upon  this  suspicioUj  with  torture  and 
insult ;  some  torn  to  pieces  by  dogs,  after  being 
sewed  up  in  the  skins  of  wild  animals,  some 
crucified,  and  some  wrapped  in  pitch  and  set  on 
fire,  to  serve  for  lamps  in  the  night.  Two  years 
after  the  great  fire,  Popp^ea  came  to  lier  death  in 
as  brutal  a  manner  as  mother,  sister,  and  brother 
had  done  before.  She  was  killed  by  Nero,  in  a 
fit  of  anger,  by  a  violent  kick  when  in  an  ad- 
vanced state  of  pregnacy. 

He  then  celebrated  his  fifth  marriage,  with  a 
lady  named  Messalina ;  with  whom  it  happened 
to  be  her  fifth  marriage  also.  Her  last  husband 
was  Atticus  Vestinus,  whom  Nero  put  to  death 
in  order  to  obtain  possession  of  his  wife.  But  he 
soon  divorced  her,  yet  that  did  not  break  her 
heart,  for  she  outlived  him,  and  preserved  her 
beauty  to  captivate  the  fancy  of  another  emperor, 
in  future  years. 

Nero  was  married  the  sixth  time  to  a  boy. 
His  name  was  Sporus.  Nero  fancied  that  his 
beauty  resembled  that  of  his  slain  Poppsea,  whose 
death  he  repented  and  bewailed.  He  caused 
Sporus  to  be  made  a  eunuch,  and  exhausted  the 


OP  MARIttAG^.  119 

powers  of  art  ia  trying  to  make  him  a  woman* 
He  then  espoused  him,  with  the  most  solemn 
forms  of  marriage ;  and  it  was  cleverly  remarked 
by  the  people,  that  it  was  a  great  pity  that  his 
father  Domitius  had  not  had  sucli  a  wife. 

His  seventh  and  last  marriage  was  to  Dorypho^ 
tus,  his  own  freedman ;  but  in  this  case  Nero 
himself  was  the  bride,  and  his  manumitted  slave 
the  groom.  Nero  was  a  musician  and  a  come* 
dian,  and  was  accustomed  to  spend  a  great  part 
of  his  time  in  rehearsal  and  in  public  performance^ 
as  an  actor.  He  chose  the  crowded  theatre  as 
the  place  in  which  to  celebrate  this  marriage.  He 
first  covered  himself  with  the  skin  of  a  wild  beast, 
and  in  that  dress,  before  thousands  of  assembled 
men  and  women,  committed  rapes  upon  persons 
of  both  sexes,  who  were  tied  to  stakes  for  that 
purpose.  Having  thus  demonstrated  his  manhood, 
he  appeared  as  the  bride  in  his  marriage  to  Do- 
ryphorus,  to  whom  he  was  married  in  the  same 
solemn  form  that  Sporus  had  been  married  to  him  ; 
finishing  the  representation  by  consumaiating  the 
marriage  in  the  embraces  of  Doryphorus,  him- 
self imitating  the  cries  and  shrieks  of  young 
virgins  when  they  are  ravished. 


120  mstoiilt  ANi)  piiilosoPMf 

Nero  died  by  his  own  hand,  A.D.  68,  in  the 

thirty-first  year  of  his  age,  and  the  fourteenth  of 
his  imperial  power.     He  left  no  child,  either  by 
.birth  or  by  adoption.     He  was   the   last  of  the 
;  Caesars.     That  name  was  henceforth  only  an  lion- 
,  orary  title.     Can  any  one  regret  the  extinction  of 
the  dissolute  and  degenerate  race?     Is  it  not  a 
happy  provision  in  the  laws  of  God,  that  "  mon- 
sters cannot  propagate  "  ?  * 

Such  was  monogamy  at  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era ;  for  it  was  during  the  reign  of 
Augustus  that  Christ  was  born,  and  during  that 
of  Nero  that  Paul  was  beheaded.  Such  was  the 
social  system  imposed  by  Rome  upon  the  nations 
of  Europe.  This  is  no  fancy  sketch,  nor  have  the 
facts  here  cited  been  herein  exaggerated.  My 
authorities  are  accessible  to  every  scholar,  and  I 
invite  criticism  and  investigation.  The  question 
now  arises.  How  was  Roman  monogamy  affected 
by  its  contact  with  Christianity  ?  And  this  question 
I  shall  proceed  to  discuss  in  another  chapter. 

*  Sueton.  Vit.  NeroniSj  par.  20-29.  ;  Tac.  Ann.;  Keight.  Histr 
Bom.  Emp. 


OP  MARktAGB.  121 


CHAPTER    VI.     , 

HOW  WAS  ROMAN  MONOGAMY  AFFECTED  Bt 
THE  INTRODUCTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY? 

The  introduction  of  Christianity  effected  no 
violent  revolutions  of  any  kind  in  the  social  rela- 
tions of  men  and  women,  except  by  purifying 
these  relations,  and  enforcing  the  duties  dependent 
upon  them.  Christianity  did  not  dictate  any  par- 
ticular form  of  government,  or  any  code  of  laws, 
but  enjoined  obedience  to  the  existing  laws,  when 
they  were  not  inconsistent  with  the  laws  of  the 
gospel.  The  first  Christians,  while  they  were 
themselves  scarcely  tolerated,  were  not  inclined  to 
attempt  a  social  revolution  by  opposing  the  estab- 
lished system  of  monogamy ;  but  they  attempted 
to  oppose  only  its  vices,  and  to  remove  them. 
They  insisted,  from  the  first,  upon  purity  and 
chastity  in  men  and  women  equally.  They  de- 
nounced prostitution,  adultery,  and   frequent   and 


1^2  mSTORY  A^D  PmLOSOPJtt " 

capricious  divorces,  and  did  what  they  could  t6 
eradicate  their  practice.  But  before  they  attained 
any  degree  of  civil  or  religious  freedom,  or  were 
in  any  situation  to  introduce  the  purer  system  of 
polygamy,  they  had  themselves  become  thoroughly 
Romanized ;  and  the  errors  of  Gnosticism,  Plato- 
nism,  and  Montanism  had  then  prevailed  so  exten^ 
sively  as  to  impel  them,  at  last,  to  attempt  a  social 
reformation  in  a  direction  quite  contrary  to  po- 
lygamy, by  discouraging  marriage,  and  by  introdu- 
cing asceticism,  monasticism,  and  celibacy. 

GNOSTICISM   IN   THE   FIRST   CENTURY. 

Christianity  was  not  fully  tolerated  in  Europe 
till  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Constantine  the 
Great,  in  the  former  part  of  the  fourth  century ; 
and  was  not  established  by  law  as  the  religion  of 
Rome,  till  the  reign  of  Theodosius,  in  the  very 
last  part  of  that  century ;  while  Gnosticism  and  its 
cognate  errors  began  to  be  disseminated  even  in  the 
first  century,  in  apostolic  times :  they  prevailed 
extensively  in  the  second  century,  and  had  perma- 
nently corrupted  the  church  in  the  third  and 
fourth.     While  the  different  Gnostic  writers  and 


OP  MARHIAGE.  128 

teachers  differed  greatly  from  one  another  on 
many  points  of  belief,  they  were  generally  agreed 
in  their  fundamental  doctrines,  which  sprung  from 
the  ancient  Persian  or  Magian  system  of  religion, 
and  which  taught  the  existence  of  two  eternal 
beings,  —  Ormuzd,  or  God,  the  author  of  good,  and 
the  creator  of  light,  which  is  his  emblem  ;  and 
Ahriman,  or  the  Devil,  the  author  of  evil,  and 
the  creator  of  darkness,  his  emblem.  They 
believed  that  the  world  consisted  of  spirit  and 
of  matter,  both  being  eternal ;  the  latter,  essen- 
tially evil,  formed  or  moulded  by  the  Devil 
from  the  eternal  substance  of  chaos,  and  the 
former,  essentially  good,  proceeding  out  of  God, 
and  still  forming  a  part  of  God :  hence,  that  the 
body  is  vile,  wicked,  and  dark ;  while  the  soul  is 
pure,  holy,  and  light.  The  body,  therefore,  with 
its  appetites  and  passions,  should  be  despised  and 
subdued ;  while  the  soul,  with  its  superior  attri- 
butes, should  be'  cherished  and  obeyed.  The 
principal  Gnostic  teachers  of  the  first  century 
were  Simon  Magus,  Menander,  and  Cerinthus. 
They  all  studied  at  Alexandria,  and  all  became 
Christians.     Cerinthus  taught  that  the  man  Jesus 


124  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPHT 

was  born  of  Joseph  and  Mary  in  the  natural  way ; 
that  the  sl'cop^  Christ,  descended  on  him  at  his  bap- 
tism, in  the  form  of  a  dove ;  and,  previous  to  the 
crucifixion,  that  the  el'ooy  returned  to  God,  leaving 
the  man  to  suffer  on  the  cross. 

GNOSTICISM    AND    PLATONISM    OF    THE    SECOND 
CENTUKY. 

In  the  second  century,  the  Gnostic  Christians 
became  much  more  numerous  and  influential. 
Among  the  writers  and  teachers  whom  historians 
particularly  mention  were  Saturuinus,  Basilides, 
Carpocrates,  Valentine,  Bardesaues,  Tatian,  Mar- 
cion,  Montanus,  Tertullian,  and  Origen.  Saturuinus 
(A.D.  115)  taught  that  Satan,  the  ruler  of  mat- 
ter, was  coeval  with  the  Deity  ;  that  the  world  was 
created  by  seven  angels,  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  Deity,  who,  however,  was  not  displeased 
when  he  saw  it,  and  breathed  into  man  a  rational 
soul.  Satan,  enraged  at  the  creation  of  the  world 
and  the  virtue  of  its  inhabitants,  formed  another 
race  of  men  out  of  matter,  with  malignant  souls 
like  his  own  ;  and  hence  arose  the  great  moral 
difference  to  be  observed  amoni?  men.     The  moral 


OF  MARRIAGE.  125 

discipline  of  Saturiiinus  was  ascetic  and  severe : 
ho  discouraged  marriage,  declaring  it  to  be  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Devil ;  *  he  enjoined  abstinence  from 
wine  and  flesh,  and  taught  to  keep  under  the  body, 
as  being  formed  from  matter,  which  is  in  its 
essence  evil  and  corrupt.  Bardesanes  wrote  about 
A.D.  170,  in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Marcus 
Aurelius.  "  His  moral  system  was  ascetic  in  the 
extreme ;  he  enjoined  his  disciples  to  renounce 
wedlock,  abstain  from  animal  food,  and  live  in 
solitude  on  the  slightest  and  most  meagre  diet,  and 
even  to  use  water  instead  of  wine  in  the  Lord's 
Supper."  I'  Montanus  (A.D.  175)  insisted  upon 
more  frequent  and  more  rigorous  fasts  than  had 
yet  prevailed  in  the  church,  for  they  had  hitherto 
fasted  only  during  the  passion-week  ;  he  forbade 
second  marriages ;  taught  the  absolute  and  irrevo- 
cable excommunication  of  adulterers,  murderers, 
and  idolaters ;  required  all  chaste  women  to  wear 
veils ;  and  forbade  all  kinds  of  costly  attire  and 
ornaments  of  the  person.  His  most  distinguished 
disciple    was   TertuUian,    bishop   of    Carthage,    a 

♦  Mosheim,  Ecc.  Hist.,  vol.  1,  p.  246. 

t  Keightley's  Hist.  Rom.  Emp.,  part  2,  chap.  7. 


126  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPBY 

very  learned  and  voluminous  writer,  whose  works 
have  been  held  in  the  greatest  estimation  in  every 
age.  Origen,  a  still  more  learned  and  more  vo- 
luminous writer,  and  a  very  eloquent  preacher, 
embraced  the  Gnostic  errors  when  a  young  man, 
and  carried  his  principles  of  subduing  the  pass^ions 
of  the  body  to  such  an  extent,  that  he  made  a 
eunuch  of  himself:  but  in  after-life,  when  he  had 
spent  many  years  in  studying,  translating,  and  ex- 
pounding the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  understood 
tliem  better,  he  regretted  the  rash  act  of  his  youth, 
and  greatly  modified  his  Gnostic  sentiments  ;  so 
much  so,  that  many  have  accused  him  of  teaching 
different  views  of  the  same  subject,  and  of  con- 
tradicting himself. 

The  first  Platonic  philosopher  who  joined  the 
Christians  was  Justin  Martyr,  who  was  beheaded 
at  Rome  A.D.  155  ;  followed  by  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, A.D.  192,  who  had  a  school  in  that  city 
called  the  Catechetic  School,  which  attempted  to 
harmonize  the  philosophy  of  Plato  with  the  mate- 
rialism of  the  Gnostics  by  means  of  the  common 
medium  of  Christianity.  This  scheme  was  called 
the  New  Platonism ;  and  a  long  contest  prevailed 


OF  MARRIAGE.  127 

between  the  followers  of  this  system  and  the  Advo- 
cates for  gospel  simplicity.  But  the  victory  ap- 
peared to  be  on  the  side  of  the  Platonists,  which 
assured  the  lasting  corruption  of  Christianity ;  for 
learned  Christians  now  began  to  maintain  that  the 
Scriptures  have  a  double  meaning ;  one  literal  and 
plain,  and  the  other  latent  and  symbolic  :  the  literal 
or  exoteric  sense  to  be  taught  to  the  people,  and 
the  latent  or  esoteric  sense  to  be  communicated 
only  to  the  initiated  and  the  faithful.  A  similar 
distinction  in  morals  followed.  There  was  one 
rule  for  the  multitude,  and  another  for  the  aspirants 
to  higher  sanctity.  These  were  to  seek  retirement 
and  to  mortify  the  flesh,  avoiding  marriage  and  all 
indulgence  of  the  senses.  Hence  originated  the 
austerities  of  religious  hermits  ;  hence  the  celibacy 
of  priests,  monks,  and  nuns. 

RELATION   OF   MONOGAMY  TO  CHRISTIANITY  IN   THE 
THIED    AND    FOURTH   CENTURIES. 

At  the  council  of  Caesarea,  A.D.  314,  it  was  de- 
cided and  decreed,  in  the  first  canon,  that,  if  a 
priest  should  marry  after  his  ordination,  he  must 
be  deposed  from  oflice.     The  seventh   canon  for- 


128  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

bids  a  priest  to  be  present  at  the  marriage  of  a 
bigamist. 

At  the  council  of  Ancyra,  in  the  same  year,  it 
was  ordered,  in  the  tenth  canon,  that  those  deacons 
who  expressed  their  intention  to  marry  at  the  time 
of  their  ordination  might  innocently  do  so  ;  but,  if 
they  should  marry  without  having  expressed  such 
intention,  they  must  be  deposed  from  office. 

At  the  first  council  of  Carthage,  A.D.  348, 
by  the  second  canon,  it  was  ordered  that  all  Chris- 
tians who  had  violated  their  vows  of  virginity  by 
subsequent  marriage  should  be  excommunicated  ; 
and,  if  they  were  priests,  thej  should  be  deposed 
from  office. 

Siricius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  m  385  ordered  that 
every  priest  and  every  deacon  within  his  diocese 
who  should  marry  a  second  wife,  or  a  widow, 
should  be  deposed  fi*om  office. 

While  these  Gnostic  and  Platonic  sentiments 
w^ere  at  work  corrupting  the  church  within,  the 
state  of  social  life  without  the  pale  of  Christianity 
was  much  the  same  as  it  has  been  described  under 
the  first  six  Caesars  ;  or,  if  the  testimony  of  all  the 
contemporary  writers  can  be  believed,  it  was  be- 


OF  MAliHIAGE,  lS9 

coming  more  aad  more  corrupt.  The  Christians 
formed  but  a  small  minority  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion, and  they  were  generally  hated,  and  often  per- 
secuted. It  is  scarcely  possible  for  us  to  conceive 
of  any  greater  depravity  than  that  of  the  age  of 
Caligula  and  Nero  ;  and  we  do  not  wonder  to  learn 
that  in  the  succeeding  century  the  once  mighty 
Roman  empire  was  beginning  to  totter  to  its  fall. 
But  before  it  fell  it  Avas  destined  to  be  upheld  a 
Avhile  by  the  fortitude  of  Christian  patriots  ;  and,  in 
turn,  the  purity  of  Christianity  was  to  become  more 
and  more  sullied  by  its  long  contact  with  Roman 
depravity,  and  its  intimate  complicity  with  Roman 
monogamy. 

CONSTAXTINE    AND    THEODOSIUS. 

In  the  former  part  of  the  fourth  century,  the  two 
joint  emperors  were  Constantino  and  Licinius. 
They  agreed,  at  first,  to  tolerate  Christianity ;  but 
Licinius  violated  his  agreement,  and  commenced  a 
persecution.  Tlien  Coastantine,  who  had  himself 
been  a  pagan  hitherto,  resolved  to  favor  the  Chris- 
tians more  than  he  had  done  already,  and  thus 
attach  to  himself  the  most  industrious  and  peace- 
able citizens,  and  the  most  brave  and  loyal  soldiers 
9 


130  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  empire.  In  the  year  A.D.  324  the  cross  ap- 
peared for  the  first  time  upoa  his  banners ;  his 
rival  was  defeated,  and  he  became  sole  emperor. 
Then  Constantine  issued  circular  letters,  announ- 
cing his  conversion  to  Christianity,  and  inviting  the 
people  to  follow  his  example.  This  call  of  the  pow- 
erful monarch  was  not  unheeded.  The  Christian 
faith  spread  rapidly  :  ministers  of  religion  thronged 
the  royal  court,  and  offices  of  honor  and  profit  were 
conferred  upon  Christians.  Yet  Constantine  him- 
self, through  all  his  subsequent  life,  was  only  a 
catechumen  or  inquirer,  and  was  not  baptized,  and 
received  into  full  membership  in  the  church,  until 
he  was  near  his  end.  And,  in  the  mean  time,  he 
left  the  ancient  system  of  the  Roman  state  undis- 
turbed ;  and  paganism,  with  its  corrupt  monogamy, 
was  still  the  law  of  the  land.  At  length  Theodo-!' 
sius,  his  grandson,  required  the  Senate,  a  majority 
of  whom  had  hitherto  remained  pagans,  to  choose 
between  the  two  religions  ;  and  they  were  finally 
induced  to  vote  in  accordance  with  his  wishes,  in 
favor  of  Christianity.  He  soon  (A.D.  392)  pub- 
lished a  severe  edict  against  paganism  ;  and  "  then 
pretended  conversions  became  numerous,  the  tern- 


OF  MARRIAGE,  131 

pies  were  deserted,  and  the  churches  filled  with 
worshippers,  aed  the  religion  under  which  Rome 
flourished  for  twelve  centuries  ceased  forever."  * 

ASCETICISM   AND    MONASTICISM. 

And  then  at  length,  when  Christianity  became 
paramount  in  the  State,  a  permanent  and  decided 
social  reform  might  have  been  possible,  had  they 
tolerated  polygamy,  as  the  first  Christians  had  done 
in  Judaea  and  other  Asiatic  countries  ;  for  they 
would  thus  have  made  it  possible  for  all  to  be  mar- 
ried that  wished  to  marry,  and  thus  have  guarded 
themselves  from  the  terrible  licentiousness  of  the 
pagans,  by  the  influences  of  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded on  every  hand.  But,  on  the  contrary,  im- 
pelled by  the  prevailing  influences  of  Gnosticism, 
they  not  only  retained  their  former  monogamy,  but 
they  made  it  more  strict  and  ascetic  than  before,  and 
attempted  an  impossible  reform  by  suppressing  the 
amorous  propensities,  and  vainly  endeavoring  to 
eradicate  them.  The  bishops  and  doctors  of  the 
church  had  already  done  what  they  could  to  dis- 
courage marriage,  and  bring  it  into  disrepute,  es- 

*  Keiffhtley  Rom.  Emo.,  part  3,  chap.  6. 


132  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

pecially  with  the  ministers  of  religion ;  but  now 
they  forbade  it  to  them  altogether. 

At  the  council  of  Toledo,  in  A.D.  400,  it  was 
ordered,  by  canon  seventeenth,  that  every  Christian 
that  had  both  a  wife  and  a  concubine  should  be 
excommunicated  ;  but  he  should  not  be  excommu- 
nicated who  had  only  a  concubine  without  a  wife. 

At  the  fourth  council  of  Carthage,  A.D.  401,  it 
was  ordered,  by  canon  seventieth,  that  all  bishops, 
priests,  and  deacons,  who  had  wives,  must  repudiate 
them,  and  live  in  celibacy,  under  penalty  of  deposi- 
tion from  office. 

Pope  Innocent  I.,  about  A.D.  412,  in  his  official 
letter  to  the  two  bishops  of  Abruzzo,  orders  them 
to  depose  those  priests  who  had  been  guilty  of  the 
crime  of  having  children  since  their  ordination. 

Thus  the  seeds  of  Gnostic  error,  that  had  been 
sown  in  the  church  during  the  former  periods  of  its 
history,  now  sprang  up  anew,  and  bore  a  plentiful 
Virvest.  ''  Nothing,"  says  Keightley,  "  is  more 
characteristic  of  the  corruption  which  Christianity 
lad  undergone  than  the  high  honor  in  which  the 
rarious  classes  of  ascetics  were  held.  These  use- 
ess    or  pernicious   beings  now  actually  swarmed 


OF  MAUniAGE.  133 

throughout  the  Eastern  empire,  and  were  grad^ 
ually  spreading  themselves  into  the  "West.  We 
have  shown  how  asceticism  has  been  derived  from 
the  sultry  regions  of  Asia,  and  how  it  originates 
in  the  Gnostic  principles.  It  had  long  been  insinu- 
ating itself  into  the  church  ;  but,  after  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity,  it  burst  forth  like  a  torrent." 
"  The  hope  of  acquiring  heaven  by  virginity  and 
mortification  was  not  confined  to  the  male  sex: 
woman,  with  the  enthusiasm  and  the  devotional 
tendency  peculiar  to  her,  rushed  eagerly  towards 
the  crown  of  glory*  Nunneries  became  numerous^ 
and  were  thronged  with  inmates.  Nature,  how* 
ever,  not  unfrequently  asserted  her  rights  ;  and  the 
complaints  and  admonitions  of  the  most  celebrated 
fathers  assure  us  that  the  unnatural  state  of  vowed 
celibacy  was  productive  of  the  same  evils  and  scan* 
dais  in  ancient  as  in  modern  times.'*  * 

MEDIEVAL    SUPEESTITION   AND   IMMORALITT* 

*'  And  then,"  says  the  learned  ecclesiastical  his- 
torian, Mosheim,  "  the  number  of  immoral  and  un- 

*  Hist.  Rom.  Emp.,  chap.  6. 


134  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

worthy  Christians  began  so  to  increase,  that  the 
examples  of  real  piety  and  virtue  became  ex- 
tremely rare.  When  the  terrors  of  persecution 
were  totally  dispelled ;  when  the  church,  secured 
from  the  efforts  of  its  enemies,  enjoyed  the  sweets 
of  prosperity  and  peace  ;  when  the  major  part  of 
its  bishops  exhibited  to  their  flocks  the  contagious 
examples  of  arrogance,  luxury,  effeminacy,  ani- 
mosity, and  strife,  with  other  vices  too  numerous  to 
mention ;  when  multitudes  were  drawn  into  the 
profession  of  Christianity,  not  by  the  power  of  con- 
viction and  argument,  but  by  the  prospect  of  gain 
or  by  the  fear  of  punishment,  —  then  it  was  indeed 
no  wonder  that  the  church  was  contaminated  with 
shoals  of  profligate  Christians,  and  that  the  vir- 
tuous few  were,  in  a  manner,  oppressed  and  over- 
whelmed by  the  superior  numbers  of  the  wicked 
I  and  licentious."  "  Nor  did  the  evil  end  here  ;  for 
those  vain  fictions,  which  an  attachment  to  the 
Platonic  philosophy  and  to  popular  opinions  had 
engaged  the  greatest  part  of  the  Christian  doctors 
to  adopt  before  the  time  of  Constantine,  were  now 
confirmed,  enlarged,  and  embellished  in  various 
ways.     Hence   arose    the    extravagant  veneration 


W  iiAiihiAGk  135 

for  departed  saiats,  the  celibacy  of  priests,  the 
Avorship  of  images  and  relics,  which,  ia  process  of 
time,  almost  totally  destroyed  the  Christian  religion, 
or  at  least  eclipsed  its  lustre,  and  corrupted  its  es- 
sence." '^  A  preposterous  desire  of  imitating  the 
pagan  rites,  and  of  blending  them  with  the  Chris- 
tian worship,  and  that  idle  propensity  which  the 
generality  of  mankind  have  towards  a  gaudy  and 
ostentatious  religion,  all  combined  to  establish  the 
reign  of  superstition  on  the  ruins  of  Christianity. 
Accordingly,  frequent  pilgrimages  were  undertaken 
to  Palestine  and  to  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs,  as  if 
there  alone  the  sacred  principles  of  virtue  and  the 
certain  hope  of  salvation  were  to  be  acquired.  The 
public  processions  and  supplications,  by  which  the 
pagans  endeavored  to  appease  their  gods,  were 
now  adopted  into  the  Christian  worship,  and  cele- 
brated with  great  pomp  and  magnificence.  The 
virtues  that  had  formerly  been  ascribed  to  the 
heathen  temples,  to  their  lustrations,  to  the  statues 
of  their  gods  and  heroes,  were  now  attributed  to 
the  Christian  churches,  to  water  consecrated  by 
certain  forms  of  prayer,  to  the  images  of  holy  men  ; 
and  the  worship  of  the  martyrs  was  modelled  ac- 


136  HISTORY  AND  FHILOSOPHT 

cording  to  the  religious  services  that  were  paid  to 

the  gods  before  the  comiog  of  Christ."  * 

Similar  testimonies  could  easily  be  cited   from 

.  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman    Em- 
f 

i  pire,"  from  D'Aubigne's  "  History  of  the  Keforma- 
!  tion,"  from  the  ancient  works  of  Eusebius,  and  the 
modern  ones  of  Neauder,  and  from  hundreds  of 
others  ;  but  I  will  not  weary  my  readers  with  them. 
Thus  it  appears  from  the  testimonies  of  all  the  his- 
torians, ecclesiastical  and  civil,  sacred  and  profane, 
that  the  doctrines  and  practices  which  distinguish 
the  Roman-Catholic  Church  to-day  were  most  of 
them  derived  from  a  very  early  age,  anterior  to  the 
civil  acknowledgment  and  legal  establishment  of 
Christianity.  Keightley  says,  '^  The  Church  of 
Rome  is,  in  fact,  very  unjustly  treated  when  she  is 
charged  with  being  the  author  of  the  tenets  and 
practices  which  were  transmitted  to  her  from  the 
fourth  century.  Her  guilt  or  error  was  not  that  of 
invention,  but  of  retention.'* 

IMMUTABILITY   OF    THE   ROMAN   CHURCH. 

Her  boasted  claim  of  immutability  is  well  sus- 
tained, as  far  back,  certainly,  as  the    commence- 

*  Mosheira,  Ecc.  Hist.  Cent.  4,  oart  2,  chap.  3. 


OF  MAIiRIAOE.  137 

ment  of  the  fifth  centuiy.  The  Western  empire 
survived  till  the  close  of  that  century ;  and  as  the 
power  of  the  emperors  continued  to  decline,  that  of 
the  bishops  of  Rome,  who  were  afterwards  called 
popes,  continued  to  increase,  till  at  length  they  at- 
tained monarchical  as  well  as  hierarchical  power, 
and  governed  the  religious  and  the  social  affairs  of 
the  European  world.  And  as  the  dogmas  of  the 
Roman  Church  are  now  maintaining  monogamy 
with  many  of  its  attendant  vices,  and  are  now  pro- 
hibiting marriage  to  its  clergy,  and  discouraging  it 
in  all  its  more  earnest  religious  devotees,  of  both 
sexes,  so  they  always  have  done.  And  we  have  the 
testimonies  of  all  modern  historians,  all  modern 
travellers,  and  of  modern  statistics,  that  the  vices 
of  old  Rome  that  then  attended  its  social  system  of 
monogamy  are  still  the  vices  of  modern  Rome,  and 
of  all  the  countries  under  the  sway  of  the  Roman 
Church ;  the  most  recent  statistics  of  the  Catholic 
countries  of  Europe  giving  the  number  of  illegiti- 
mate children  born  there  each  year,  as  greater 
than  the  number  of  those  of  legitimate  birth.  And 
it  is  not  only  on  the  corrupt  soil  of  old  Europe  that 
the   licentiousness   of  ancient   Roman  monogamy 


138  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

still  prevails,  but  also  in  the  Catholic  countries  of 
Dew  America.  In  proof  of  this  I  will  cite  only 
one  testimony,  where  thousands  might  be  cited, 
from  a  recent  work  entitled  "  What  I  saw  in  South 
and  North  America."  By  H.  W.  Baxley,  M.D., 
Special  Commissioner  of  the  United-States  Gov- 
ernment. D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1865. 
This  is  his  description  of  "  what  he  saw  "  in  Lima, 
the  capital  of  Peru  :  — 

"  It  is  rarely  the  case  that  one  walks  in  any 
part  of  the  city,  during  the  day  or  night,  without 
being  shocked  by  sights  of  indecency,  immodesty, 
and  immorality,  too  gross  even  to  be  hinted  at, 
and  disgraceful  to  the  arrogant  civilization  of  the 
nation.  If  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  ninety- 
three  priests,  exercising  ecclesiastical  authority 
and  performing  religious  functions  in  this  city,  as 
published  in  its  statistics,  with  seventy  churches, 
forty-two  chapels,  six  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
altars,  and  vast  power  of  influence  and  enforce- 
ment, cannot  produce  a  better  state  of  morals  and 
manners,  it  shows  either  a  defective  system  of  re- 
ligion, or  incapacity  and  faithlessness  on  the  part 
of  the  executors  of  the  holy  trust.  The  statements 
of  candid  citizens  and  of  foreign  residents  of  many 
years  compel  the  belief,  that  the  general  demoraliza- 


OF  MAURI  AGE,  139 

tion  is  mainly  clue  to  a  depraved  clergy.  If  priests 
taking  vows  of  chastity  and  devotion  alone  to  God, 
perjure  themselves,  obey  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  and 
scatter  their  illegitimate  offspring  abroad,  it  is  to 
be  expected  that  they  will  find  imitators  among 
those  whose  temporal  purity  they  should  guard, 
and  whose  eternal  welfare  they  should  promote. 
The  unblushing  boldness  with  which  clerical  de- 
bauchery stalks  abroad  in  Lima  renders  it  needless 
to  put  in  any  saving  clause  of  declaration.  The 
priest  may  be  seen  on  the  sabbath  day,  as  on  others, 
in  bull-ring  and  cock-pit,  restaurant  and  tavern,  with 
commoner  and  concubine,  joining  in  noisy  revel,  or 
looking  on  with  complacent  sanction.  Nor  does 
the  going-down  of  the  sun  arrest  his  wayward  per- 
egrinations ;  for  he  may  be  seen  at  that  hour,  at 
corners,  with  tajpadas^  in  gay  and  lascivious  con- 
versation, or  threading  by-ways  in  fulfilment  of  a 
lustful  assignation.  If  the  bishop  of  Arequipas 
will  turn  to  the  '  weak  and  beggarly  elements  of 
the  world,'  if  he  cannot,  like  his  great  predecessor 
St.  Paul,  '  contain,'  but  must  obey  the  carnal  de- 
sires, '  let  him  marry,'  as  he  is  commanded  by  the 
apostle,  like  an  honorable  man  and  a  consistent 
Christian  ;  and  let  him  not  encourage  the  frailty 
of  depraved  disciples  by  a  shameless  example  of 
licentiousness  made  public  by  his  procurement  of 
separate  apartments  in  Lima  for  his  seven  concu- 
bines and  his  thirty-five  illegitimate  children. 


140  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

"  The  streets  of  tliis  capital  were  yesterday  the 
scene  of  a  procession  which  was  a  disgrace  to  its 
professed  enlightenment,  and  an  idolatrous  vio- 
lation of  its  boasted  Christianity.  A  gorgeously- 
gilded  throne,  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  negroes, 
who  were  partially  concealed  by  a  deep  valance, 
supported  the  pontifically-attircd  effigy  of  St. 
Peter  ;  its  right  arm,  moved  by  secret  machinery, 
being  occasionally  raised  in  attitude  of  blessing 
the  throngs  of  deluded  worshippers  who  bowed 
their  heads  for  its  benediction.  Another  similarly 
decorated  dais  bore  a  life-size  graven  image  of 
La  Merced,  the  patron  saint  of  Peru  ;  elegantly 
arrayed  in  curls,  coronet,  richly-embroidered 
crinoline  and  robe,  pearl  necklace  and  ear-rings, 
brooch  and  bodice ;  and  holding  in  its  uplifted 
jewelled  fingers  a  silver  yoke.  These  effigies 
were  escorted  by  prelates  and  other  ecclesiastics ; 
and  that  of  La  Merced  was  preceded  by  six  pert- 
looking  mulatto  girls,  —  designed  to  represent 
virgins,  —  carrying  incense  upon  silver  salvers, 
from  which  numerous  censers,  swung  by  priestly 
hands,  were  kept  supplied,  and  rolled  upward 
their  clouds  of  perfume,  to  tell  of  the  adoration 
of  her  votaries.  The  whole  procession  moved  to 
the  sound  of  measured  chants  sung  by  hundreds 
of  the  clergy,  who  often  bowed  ;  behind  whom 
followed  the   civic   diuaiitaries   of   the  nation    and 


OF  MARRIAGE.  141 

city,  bareheaded  and  reverential ;  and  after  these 
came  the  plumed  warriors,  on  horse  and  foot, 
with  breastplate  and  helmet,  lance,  sabre,  musket, 
and  cannon,. flaunting  banners,  and  martial  music, 
guarding  the  saints  through  the  city,  and  back  to 
the  altars  of  the  Church  of  La  Merced,  whence 
they  came,  and  Avhere  they  will  receive  hereafter, 
as  heretofore,  the  petitions  and  vows  of  thousands 
of  misguided  religionists.  Can  popular  regenera- 
tion be  rationally  looked  for  when  examples  of 
ecclesiastical  profligacy  are  patent  to  the  public 
eye,  and  when  such  violations  of  divine  precepts 
are  practised,  and  such  delusions  devised  to  mis- 
lead the  ignorant? 

"  No  one  can  scrutinize  the  social  habits  in 
Lima,  without  becoming  sensible  of  the  fact  that 
women  are  probably  '  more  sinned  against  than 
sinning.'  For  they  not  only  have  provocations  to 
faithlessness,  and  opportunity  afforded  for  its  in- 
dulgence by  sanctioned  customs,  but  they  arc 
taught  by  the  universally-recognized  dissoluteness 
of  the  men  not  to  place  any  confidence  in  them, 
and  not  to  contemplate  marriage  as  a  means  of 
happiness  beyond  its  power  to  furnish  an  estab- 
lishment, and  make  a  woman  mistress  of  her 
own  actions. 

"  In  the  street  called  San  Francisco,  opposite 
the   monastery  of  that   name,  a  kind  of  barracks 


142  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

is  found,  containing  quite  a  population  apart  from 
the  rest.  There  lives  a  class  of  women  and  chil- 
dren whom  one  would  think  came  in  a  direct  line 
from  the  gypsies,  if  their  complexion  did  not  'show 
a  variety  of  a  thousand  shades,  from  white  to 
black.  These  women  are  the  acknowledged 
mistresses,  and  the  children  the  progeny,  of  the 
monks,  who  visit  them  at  all  times,  and  pay  them 
a  regular  stipend.  '  La  casa  de  la  monjas,'  — the 
house  of  the  nuns,  —  as  the  people  ironically  call 
it,  is  a  real  Gomorrah.  The  clerical  protectors  of 
the  tenants  that  inhabit  it  willingly  mistake  the 
chambers,  not  having  the  weakness  of  the  laity 
of  being  jealous  of  each  other.  Do  not  suppose 
that  we  are  amusing  ourselves  in  speaking  ill  of  the 
monks  of  Lima.  These  abominations  among  them- 
selves they  are  the  first  to  expose  ;  for  in  their 
stated  elections  for  superiors,  such  is  the  bitterness 
of  rival  aspirants,  that  they  publicly  charge  against 
each  other  these  infamous  transactions,  making 
known  the  number  of  their  concubines  and  illegiti- 
mate children." 


Thus  have  Dr.  Baxley  and  others  cast  the 
principal  reproach  of  this  frightful  immorality 
upon  the  poor  priests ;  but  does  it  not  belong 
rather  to  their  entire  social  system  ?     The  priests 


OF  MARUIAGE.  143 

in  assuming  the  vows  of  perpetual  celibacy,  and 
the  people  iu  supporting  the  old  Roman  monog- 
amy, which  their  Gnostic  views  of  Christianity 
require,  have  assumed  more  than  human  nature 
is  able  to  bear,  and  more  than  it  ought  to  bear ; 
and  there  must  be  constant  transgression  and 
immorality  as  long  as  their  present  system  pre- 
vails. 

And  now  I  think  I  have  fairly  demonstrated 
that  the  European  social  system  of  monogamy 
had  its  origin  in  Roman  paganism,  and  has  been 
perpetuated  by  Roman  Catholicism. 


144  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER   VII. 

MOxNOGAMY  AS  IT  IS  AMONG    PROTESTANTS. 
MONOGAMY   IS   KOMANISM    STILL. 

Take  monogamy  as  it  is  to-day,  in  Protestant 
countries,  and  we  see  that  the  old  Roman  leaven 
is  still  in  it.  Christianity  has  not  reformed  and 
purified  that  system  so  much  as  that  has  corrupted 
Christianity.  Most  of  us  in  these  countries  are 
accustomed  to  congratulate  ourselves  upon  our 
happy  escape  from  the  bondage  and  the  bigotry 
of  the  Papal  Church.  But  we  are  mistaken. 
We  have  not  escaped.  Rome  binds  us  in  stronger 
shackles  than  the  iron  chains  of  the  holy  Inquisi- 
tion. Her  shackles  are  upon  our  consciences :  they 
are  intertwined  with  every  fibre  of  our  social  life. 
Much  of  her  intolerant  spint,  many  of  her  ques- 
tionable doctrines  and  practices,  and  her  tradi- 
tional forms  and  ceremonies,  are  still  common  to 
the  nominally  Christian  world.     In  respect  to   a 


OF  MARRIAGE,  146 

few  of  them,  Ave  have  discovered  that  they  are 
uuscriptural,  and  unsupported  by  divine  authority, 
and  are  therefore  of  no  binding  obligation  ;  but,  by 
many  other  traditional  doctrines  and  practices  of 
that  hierarchy,  we  are  unconsciously,  and  there- 
fore so  much  the  more  securely  fettered.  Wo 
boast  of  our  Christian  freedom,  while  we  are,  in 
fact,  but  little  better  than  slaves ;  for  if  we  are 
nomially  free,  yet  we  are  bound  by  an  apprentice- 
ship to  Rome  more  degrading  than  our  former 
slavery  itself:  and  our  boasted  emancipation  is 
but  a  miserable  farce.  We  are  too  servile  and 
timid  in  our  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  and  in 
our  examination  of  the  divine  and  natural  laws. 
We  hesitate  to  follow  the  simple  truth  to  its  legiti- 
mate and  logical  conclusions.  We  stand  aghast 
at  the  radical  changes  which  severe  truth  requires 
in  our  religious  and  social  systems.  We  shrink 
from  exploring  the  profound  labyrinths  to  which 
truth  attempts  in  vain  to  lead  us  ;  while  we  look 
anxiously  around  for  clews  and  leading-strings  by 
which  to  trace  our  way.  We  dare  not  go  for- 
ward without  example  and  authority ;  and  au- 
thority and  example  are  reconducting  us  to  RomCf 


146  HISTORY  AND   PHILOSOPHY 

Our  great  champion,  Dr.  Martin  Luther,  made  a 
few  bold  steps  iu  the  right  direction,  but  stopped 
far  short  of  the  ultimate  results  to  which  his  own 
principles  were  leading.  A  Protestant  in  theory, 
lie  was,  in  practice,  essentially  a  Romanist.  He 
insisted  much  upon  justification  by  faith  alone, 
and  declared  personal  piety  to  be  necessary  to 
true  Christianity  ;  and  yet  he  admitted  all  citizens, 
irrespective  of  their  faith  or  their  want  of  it,  to 
the  most  solemn  and  most  esoteric  ordinances  of 
the  Christian  Church.  He  repudiated  the  au- 
thority of  earthly  potentates  to  compel  men's 
Christian  belief,  but  retained  the  union  of  Church 
and  State  in  order  to  compel  their  Christian  obedi- 
ence. He  denied  the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  and 
the  miraculous  power  of  the  priesthood,  and  yet 
believed  in  the  Ileal  Presence,  if  not  the  adoration 
of  the  host.  His  disciples  are  to-day  imitating 
his  example  rather  than  promoting  his  principles, 
and  possess  little  more'  evangelical  faith  than  the 
Ilomanists  themselves. 

Henry  the  Eighth,  the  founder  of  the  Church  of 
England,  was  even  less  a  Protestant  than  Luther ; 
and  the  present   tendency  of   many  of   the   most 


OF  MARRIAGE,  147 

influential  doctors  and  dignitaries  of  this  Church 
is  in  the  same  retrograde  direction  as  that  of  the 
Lutherans.  Yet  these  two  churches,  the  Anglican 
and  the  Lutheran,  are  the  main  pillars  of  Protest- 
antism, —  the  Boaz  and  Jachin  of  the  porch  of 
the  new  temple.  I  have  not  lost  my  hope  that 
the  truth  of  gospel  simplicity  will  ultimately  pre- 
vail over  ecclesiastical  bigotry  ;  but  it  may  require 
as  many  centuries  for  the  Christian  world  to 
unlock  the  trammels  of  the  Roman  hierarchy,  and 
to  escape  from  its  thraldom,  as  it  originally  re- 
quired to  fix  those  trammels  upon  the  consciences 
of  Christian  freemen. 

But  the  Romans  are  more  consistent  in  their 
system  of  monogamy  than  we  are  ;  for  while  the 
dogmas  of  the  Church  forbid  polygamy,  and  even 
single  marriages  to  the  ministry,  they  provide  for 
the  surplus  women,  by  having  numerous  societies 
of  uuns  and  sisters  of  charity,  who  make  a  merit 
of  necessity,  by  assuming  the  vows  of  perpetual 
celibacy,  to  serve  the  Church,  and  acquire  religious 
merit.  As  Protestants,  we  have  been  taught  to 
believe  that  these  monastic  institutions  have  proved 
to  be  schools  of  vice,  and  that  the  vows  of  perpet- 


148  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

ual  chastity  assumed  in  them  are  unnatural  and 
wicked,  and  that  they  are  often  violated  under  the 
detestable  hypocrisy  of  sacerdotal  sanctity.*     For 

*  The  following  citations  are  from  Froude's  Hist,  of  Eng., 
vol.  ii.,  chap.  10. 

"Only  light  reference  will  be  made  in  this  place  to  the 
darker  scandals  by  which  the  abbeys  were  dishonored.  Such 
things  there  really  were,  to  an  extent  which  it  may  be  painful 
to  believe,  but  which  evidence  too  abundantly  proves." 

Among  other  specifications,  ^Mr.  Froude  cites  the  letter  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (written  A.D.  1489)  to  the  Abbot  of 
St.  Albans,  wherein  he  accuses  him  thus:  "  '  Not  a  few  of  youi 
fellow  monks  and  brethren,  as  we  most  deeply  grieve  to  learn, 
giving  themselves  over  to  a  reprobate  mind,  laying  aside  the 
fear  of  God,  do  lead  only  a  life  of  lasciviousness,  —  nay,  as  is 
horrible  to  relate,  be  not  afraid  to  defile  the  holy  places,  even 
the  very  churches  of  God,  by  infamous  intercourse  with  nuns. 
You  yourself,  moreover,  among  other  grave  enormities  and 
abominable  crimes  whereof  you  are  guilty,  and  for  which  you 
are  noted  and  diffamed,  have,  in  the  first  place,  admitted  a  cer- 
tain married  woman  named  Elena  Germyn,  who  has  separated 
herself,  without  just  cause,  from  her  husband,  and  for  some 
time  past  has  lived  in  adultery  with  another  man,  to  be  a  nun, 
or  sister  in  the  Priorj^  of  Bray;  and  .  .  .  Father  Thomas 
Sudbury,  one  of  your  brother  monks,  publicly,  notoriously,  and 
without  interference  oi  punishment  from  you,  has  associated 
and  still  associates  with  this  woman,  as  an  adulterer  with  his 
harlot.    Moreover,  divers  other  of  your  brethren   and  fellow- 


OF  MARRtAGE.  149 

these  reasons,  we  have  suppressed  the  nunneries ; 
but  we  have  made  no  provision  for  the  nuns,  and 
those  who  would  have  become  nuns.  In  those 
institutions  they  were,  at  least,  assured  of  a  home 
and  a  support,  even  if  they  did  learn  vice ;  but 
now,  when  thrown  upon  the  world,  they  are  still 
moVe  exposed  to  vice,  and  are  without  a  home  and 
without  support.  Under  Catholic  monogamy,  if  a 
young  woman  made  a  false  step,  slie  could  hide 

monks  have  resorted  and  do  resort  continually  to  her  and  other 
women  at  the  same  place,  as  to  a  public  brothel  or  receiving 
liouse.  Nor  is  Bray  the  only  house  into  which  you  have  intro- 
duced disorder.  At  the  Nunnery  of  Sapwell,  you  depose  those 
who  are  good  and  religious,  you  promote  to  the  highest  dignities 
the  worthless  and  the  vicious.'  '* 

In  the  year  1536,  the  Report  of  Special  Commissioners  ap- 
pointed to  inspect  the  Monasteries  of  England  was  laid  before 
parliament,  by  which  it  appeared,  says  Mr.  Froude,  that  "  two- 
thirds  of  the  monks  in  England  were  living  in  habits  which 
may  not  be  described.  .  .  .  The  case  against  the  monas- 
teries was  complete;  and  there  is  no  occasion  either  to  be 
surprised  or  peculiarly  horrified  at  the  discovery.  The  demor- 
alization which  was  exposed  was  nothing  less  and  nothing  more 
than  the  condition  into  which  men  of  average  nature  compelled 
to  celibacy,  and  living  as  the  exponents  of  a  system  which  they 
disbelieved,  were  certain  to  fall." 


160  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

her  shame  in  a  convent,  and  devote  her  future  life 
to  penitence  and  prayer ;  but,  under  Protestant 
monogamy,  the  frail  fair  sinner  has  no  such  refuge. 
Her  first  lapse  from  virtue  shuts  her  out  forever 
from  the  respect  and  sympathy  of  the  world,  and 
from  the  hope  of  future  reformation ;  and  her 
downward  career  to  the  gates  of  hell  is  so  gen- 
erally taken  for  granted,  that  it  becomes  almost 
a  certainty.  The  only  safe  and  proper  provision 
for  homeless  women  is  marriage.  An  early  mar- 
riage will  usually  save  them  from  the  dangers  to 
which  they  are  exposed.  Monogamy  cannot  secure 
their  marriage  ;  but  polygamy  can  :  yet  we  are 
taught  to  look  with  horror  upon  polygamy  as  one 
of  the  "  relics  of  barbarism,"  although  it  is  plainly 
taught  in  the  Bible,  and  is  the  only  social  system 
which  provides  marriage  for  all,  and  which  secures 
the  honest  and  lawful  gratification  of  those  impet- 
uous passions  which  must  be  and  which  will  be 
indulged  in  some  manner,  if  not  by  marriage,  then 
without  it ;  while  we  wink  at  all  the  disgusting 
abominations  of  prostitution,  divorce,  adultery, 
and  other  vices,  which  are  the  well-known  and  the 
inevitable  results  of  restricted  marriacre.     Mono^ja- 


OF  MARRIAGE,  161 

my,  in  "  forbidding  to  marry,'*  assumes  all  thd 
curses  which  this  prohibition  entails.  We  must 
choose  between  the  system  which  provides  mar- 
riage for  all,  with  comparative  purity,  or  the  system 
of  restricted  marriage  with  inevitable  impurity. 

IMPURITY   OF   MODERN   MONOGAMY. 

The  Bible  forbids  prostitution,  but  permits  po- 
lygamy. The  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  for- 
bade polygamy,  but  permitted  prostitution.  Mod- 
ern monogamy  pretends  to  forbid  both,  but  really 
permits  prostitution  also.  Our  monogamous  moral- 
ity is,  therefore,  that  of  ancient  paganism,  and 
not  that  of  the  Bible  ;  and  prostitution  is  as  much 
a  necessary  part  of  our  social  system  as  it  was 
of  that  at  Athens,  at  Corinth,  or  at  Rome.  Our 
magistrates  are  not  ignorant  of  the  extent  of 
public  licentiousness ;  but  they  do  not  attempt  to 
suppress  it.  They  only  seek  to  conceal  it,  and 
confine  it,  if  possible,  within  its  present  limits, 
requiring  its  votaries  to  keep  it  in  the  dark.  Our 
police-officers  know  almost  every  prostitute  that 
walks  the  street,  and  allow  her  to  ply  her  nefa- 
rious trade  unmolested,  so  long  as  she  is  polite 


152  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  uoobtrusive.  As  the  Spartans  are  reputed 
to  have  said  to  the  youth  of  their  state,  in  re- 
spect to  theft,  "  Steals  hut  do  not  he  caught  at  it^^' 
so  the  guardians  of  our  public  morals  say,  "  You 
may  be  as  licentious  as  you  please,  only  make  no 
public  display  of  your  immorality."  The  reason 
of  this  connivance  at  prostitution  must  be  be- 
cause our  legislators  and  judges  believe  its  sup- 
pression to  be  impossible  ;  and,  with  our  system 
of  monogamy,  it  is  impossible.  If  there  must  be 
a  multitude  of  women  unmarried  and  unprovided 
for,  there  will  be  a  multitude  of  prostitutes ; 
and,  if  there  are  a  multitude  of  prostitutes,  there 
will  be  a  multitude  of  men,  who,  like  Shak- 
speare's  FalstafF,  will  decline  marriage,  because 
they  can  be  "  better  accommodated  than  with  a 
wife :  "  and  so  the  evil  will  go  on  continually  in- 
creasing and  propagating  itself.  The  Foundling 
Hospital,  the  Five  Points  House  of  Industry, 
and  the  Home  for  Friendless  and  Abandoned 
AYomen,  must  be  built  alongside  of  the  brothel; 
and  their  numerous  inmates  must  be  maintained 
either  by  public  tax  or  by  Christian  charity 
(most  frequently  by  the   latter)  :    so  that    honest 


OF  MARRIAGE,  153 

men  must  support  their  own  wives  and  children 
and  also  the  cast-off  drabs  and  bastards  of  un- 
principled libertines.  If  we  must  have  public 
prostitutes,  let  us  have  them  openly  and  boldly,  as 
the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  did  ;  and  let  them 
be  publicly  licensed,  as  they  were  under  Caligula, 
and  as  they  are  said  to  be  still  in  France  ;  and  let 
the  state  derive,  at  least,  sufficient  revenue  from 
them  to  bury  their  murdered  infants,  and  to  bring 
up  their  abandoned  foundlings. 

THE   HIGHER   LAW   OF   CHRISTIAN   PHILANTHROPY. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood  in  what  I  have 
just  said.  I  do  not  depreciate  that  form  of  charity 
which  seeks  out  the  victims  of  licentiousness,  and 
makes  them  the  special  objects  of  its  beneficence. 
I  would  not  say  one  word  in  its  disparagement. 
On  the  contrary,  I  acknowledge  its  genuineness. 
Such  charity  is  worthy  of  great  commendation : 
it  is  in  a  special  sense  true  Christian  charity,  for 
it  is  eminently  Christ-like  ;  since  he  came  to  seek 
and  to  save  the  lost,  and  disdaioed  not  to  be  called 
the  Friend  of  publicans  and  sinners.  But  what  I 
demand  is  this,  that  this  form  of  Christian  char- 


154  .  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOP^T 

iiy  should  so  expand  its  efforts  and  its  aims  as 
fully  to  meet  the  case,  and  yield  a  permanent 
and  radical  relief  to  that  class  of  the  poor  and 
miserable  which  it  has  taken  under  its  charge. 
Let  its  aims  be  so  comprehensive,  so  high,  so  broad, 
and  so  deep,  that  it  cannot  be  satisfied  with  any 
thing  less  than  a  prevention  of  the  "social  evil" 
which  it  has  hitherto  attempted  only  to  alleviate. 
And  it  is  certainly  no  slander  to  our  present  chari- 
ties of  this  kind,  to  say  that  the  alleviation  which 
they  have  effected  is  altogether  inadequate.  The 
miserable  victim=5  of  this  vice  are  increasing 
faster  than  the  ability  or  the  disposition  to  relieve 
them.  The  most  enthusiastic  philanthropists  have 
already  become  disheartened  ia. vainly  endeavor- 
ing to  furnish  sufficient  relief,  and  they  can  see  no ' 
means  of  prevention.  They  are  at  their  wits'- 
end ;  and  some  of  them  have  become  fully  aware, 
that,  under  our  present  social  system,  no  preven- 
tion can  be  possible.  "  While  sin  is  in  the 
world,"  some  say,  "  we  cannot  prevent  men  and 
women  from  sinning:  they  will  sin,  in  spite  of  us 
and  in  spite  of  every  thing ;  and  the  world  itself 
is  growing  more  and   more    depraved  and  wicked 


OP  MAttntAGt:.  155 

every  day.     All  that  we  caa  do  is  to  show  Chris- 
tian mercy,  and  grant  some  present  relief." 

But  the  true  Christian  philanthropist  does  not 
rest  satisfied  in  such  conclusions.  He  knows  that 
it  is  not  true  that  the  world  is  growing  worse  and 
worse,  but  that  facts  and  statistics  prove  the 
contrary.  He  believes  in  the  "  good  time  com- 
ing," and  that  the  world  is  actually  growing  better 
arid  better.  Many  causes  of  human  misery  have 
been  discovered  and  removed,  or  greatly  dimin- 
ished, and  he  hopes  that  more  will  be.  The 
average  duration  of  human  life  is  actually  being 
prolonged.  The  average  state  of  health  is  incon 
testably  being  improved.  Christianity  has  not 
been  instituted  in  vain.  It  has  already  accom- 
plished wonders  of  mercy  and  grace,  and  its 
blessed  work  of  reform  is  still  going  on.  The 
true  philanthropist,  therefore,  must  not  and  will 
not  despair.  If  no  preventive  of  licentiousness 
has  hitherto  been  found,  and  if  it  be  impossible  to 
find  any  under  our  present  social  system  of  mar- 
riage, we  must  look  for  it  under  some  other  sys- 
tem. Marriage  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  marria^re. 


15G  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

IS   THE    "SOCIAL    EVIl/'    PREVEXTIBLE  ? 

But  perhaps  some  may  suppose  that  sincere  and 
genuine  piety  is  a  sufficient  preventive  of  licen- 
tiousness, and  that,  when  all  the  people  become 
truly  converted,  and  well  instructed  in  religious 
knowledge,  then  they  will  be  secure  from  this 
vice.  I  have  great  confidence  in  genuine  piety, 
and  believe  that  it  is  indeed  the  best  antidote  to  all 
the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to  ;  but  the  difficulty  is, 
that  it  is  this  very  licentiousness  which  is  hinder- 
ing people  from  becoming  pious.  And,  besides 
this,  it  is  not  from  want  of  religious  knowledge 
that  people  become  licentious  :  they  have  already 
had  line  upon  line,  and  precept  upon  precept,  for 
many  successive  generations.  They  know  that 
licentiousness  is  a  sin  ;  and  they  know,  that,  when 
they  fall  into  it,  they  become  liable  to  the  most 
fearful  punishments,  both  in  this  life  and  in  the 
world  to  come  :  but  the  tyranny  of  monogamy  has 
left  them  no  alternative  ;  they  have  no  other  avail- 
able means  of  gratifying  the  wants  of  nature. 
Marriage  is  impossible  to  half  the  women,  and  a 
single  marriage  is  inadequate  to  the  requirements 


OF  MARBIAGE.  157 

of  half  the  men.  Pious  exhortation  is  but  idle 
talk  to  those  "who  are  sinning  from  the  excite- 
ment of  amorous  desire  of  which  there  is  no 
possible  gratification  except  a  sinful  one.  If  the 
philanthropist  who  is  giving  them  these  exhorta- 
tions cannot  point  out  a  lawful  means  of  meeting 
those  natural  wants,  of  what  profit  can  his  exhor- 
tations be?  "If  a  brother  or  a  sister  be  naked, 
and  destitute  of  daily  food,  and  one  of  you  say 
unto  them,  Depart  in  peace,  be  ye  warmed  and 
filled ;  notwithstanding  ye  give  ihem  not  those 
things  which  are  needful  to  the  body ;  what  doth 
it  profit?"  It  is  not  instruction  which  our  "des- 
titute and  abandoned  women "  want ;  they  want 
marriage ;  they  want  homes  of  their  own  to 
shelter  them,  and  husbands  to  love  them  and  to 
provide  for  them.  And  I  have  already  demon- 
strated that  it  is  their  right  to  have  them  ;  their 
natural  and  unquestionable  right,  of  which  the 
injustice  and  tyranny  of  monogamy  has  cruelly 
deprived  them.  Society  has  wronged  them ;  and 
with  their  own  peculiar,  intuitive  instinct  they  feel 
it,  though  they  cannot  tell  exactly  how.  Society, 
somehow,  has   made  war   upon   them,    most  uu- 


158  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPHT 

justly ;  and,  when  they  become  licentious,  it  is 
from  an  Instinctive  feeling  of  self-defence  ;  it  is 
only  to  take  such  justifiable  revenge  upon  society 
as  a  state  of  warfare  authorizes,  and  has,  in  a 
manner,  rendered  necessary. 

Now,  let  this  warfare  cease.  Let  the  women 
have  their  rights.  Let  every  woman  have  a  hus- 
band and  a  home  ;  and  let  every  man  have  as 
many  women  as  he  can  love,  and  as  can  love  him, 
and  as  he  is  able  to  support,  until  all  the  women 
are  provided  for  :  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  pros- 
titution cease  ;  and  then  the  happy  time  that  the 
poet  dreamed  of,  when  he  put  the  apparently  ex- 
travagant sentiment  into  his  hero's  mouth,  which  I 
have  placed  upon  my  titlepage,  will  have  come  at 
last,  and 

"  There  shall  be  no  more  widows  in  the  land/'  * 

*  "  No  man  who  loves  his  kind  can  in  these  days  rest  con- 
tent with  waiting  as  a  servant  upon  human  misery,  when  it  is 
in  so  many  cases  possible  to  anticipate  and  avert  it.  Preven- 
tion is  better  than  cure;  and  it  is  now  clear  to  all  that  a  large 
part  of  human  suffering  is  prcventible  by  improved  social  ar- 
rangements. Charity  will  now,  if  it  be  genuine,  fix  upon  this 
enterprise  as  greater,  more  widely  and  permanently  beneficial, 


OF  MARRIAGE,  169 

MONOGAMY   OCCASIONS   SEDUCTION   AND   RUIN. 
If  any  of  my  readers   have  failed  to  see  that 
there   is    any  necessary  connection   between    mo- 

and  therefore  more  Christian,  than  the  other.  It  will  not,  in- 
deed, neglect  the  lower  task  of  relieving  and  consoling  those, 
who,  whether  through  the  errors  and  unskilful  arrangements  of 
society,  or  through  causes  not  yet  preventible,  have  actually 
fallen  into  calamity.  Its  compassion  will  be  all  the  deeper,  its 
relief  more  prompt  and  zealous,  because  it  does  not  generally, 
as  former  generations  did,  recognize  such  calamities  to  be  part 
of  man's  inevitable  destiny.  When  the  sick  man  has  been  vis- 
ited, and  every  thing  done  which  skill  and  assiduity  can  do  to 
cure  him,  modern  charity  will  go  on  to  consider  the  causes  of 
his  malady,  and  then  to  inquire  whether  others  incur  the  same 
dangers,  and  may  be  warned  in  time.  When  the  starving  man 
has  been  relieved,  modem  charity  inquires  whether  any  fault  in 
the  social  system  deprived  him  of  his  share  of  Nature's  bounty, 
any  unjust  advantage  taken  by  the  strong  over  the  weak,  any 
rudeness  or  want  of  culture  in  himself,  wrecking  his  virtue  and 
his  habits  of  thrift."  [I  continue  this  quotation  with  a  reserva- 
tion; applying  it  to  the  first  Roman  Christians,  but  doubting  its 
truthfulness  in  respect  to  the  "  apostolic,"  Jewish  Christians.] 

"  The  first  Christians  were  probably  not  so  much  h  opeless  of 
accomplishing  great  social  reforms,  as  unripe  for  the  conception 
of  them.  They  did  not  easily  recognize  evil  to  be  evil,  and  did 
not  believe,  or  rather  had  never  dreamed,  that  it  could  be  cured. 
Habit  dulls  the  senses,  and  puts  the  critical  faculty  to  sleep. 


160  HISTORY  AND  FIIILOSOPHT 

nogamj  aud  female  ruin,  I  beg  them  to  examine 
carefully  the  followiug  observations.  It  has  been 
demonstrated,  in  a  former  chapter,  that  monogamy 
leaves  a  multitude  of  women  unprotected,  and  un- 
provided with  the  privileges  of  marriage.     It  does 

The  fierceness  and  hardness  of  ancient  manners  is  apparent  tons; 
but  the  ancients  themselves  were  not  shocked  by  sights  which 
were  familiar  to  them.  To  us  it  is  sickening  to  think  of  the 
gladiatorial  show,  of  the  massacres  common  in  Eoman  warfare, 
of  the  infanticide  practised  by  grave  and  respectable  citizens, 
who  did  not  merely  condemn  their  children  to  death,  but  often 
in  practice,  as  they  well  knew,  to  what  was  still  worse,  —  a  life 
of  prostitution  and  beggary.  The  Roman  regarded  a  gladiato- 
rial show  as  we  regard  a  hunt;  the  news  of  the  slaughter  of  two 
hundred  thousand  Helvetians  by  Caesar,  or  half  a  million  Jews 
by  Titus,  excited  in  his  mind  a  thrill  of  triumph;  infanticide 
committed  by  a  friend  appeared  to  him  a  prudent  measure  of 
liousehold  economy.  To  shake  off  this  paralysis  of  the  moral 
sense  produced  by  habit,  to  see  misery  to  be  misery,  and  cruelty 
to  be  cruelty,  requires  not  merely  a  strong,  but  a  trained  and 
matured  compassion.  It  was  as  much,  probably,  as  the  first 
Christian  could  learn  at  once,  to  relieve  the  sick,  the  starving, 
and  the  desolate.  Only  after  centuries  of  this  simple  philan- 
thropy could  they  learn  to  criticise  the  fundamental  usages  of 
society  itself,  and  acquire  courage  to  pronounce  that,  however 
deeply  rooted  and  time  honored,  they  were  in  many  cases 
shocking  to  humanity. 

"  Closely  connected  with  this  insensibility  to  the  real  char- 


OF  MARRIAGE,  161 

not  and  it  cannot  furnish  half  of  them  with  hus- 
bands and  homes  of  their  own :  hence  the  galling 
bondage  of  female  dependence  ;  hence  the  difficulty 
of  woman's  finding  her  '^  sphere."  Yet  there  is 
nothing  mysterious  or  doubtful  about  what  consti- 
tutes her  sphere ;  for  it  is  defined  by  the  simple 
term  "  home,"  —  that  word,  above  all  others,  so 
charming,  and  so  suggestive  of  every  excellence  in 
the  female  character,  and  of  all  the  sweet  memories 
which  cluster  round  the  blessed  names  of  mother, 

acter  of  common  usages  is  a  positive  unwillingness  to  reform 
them.  The  argument  of  prejudice  is  twofold.  It  is  not  only 
that  what  has  lasted  a  long  time  must  be  right,  but  also  that 
what  has  lasted  a  long  time,  right  or  wrong,  must  be  intended 
to  continue.  We  are  advanced  by  eighteen  hundred  years  be- 
yond the  apostolic  generation.  Our  minds  are  set  free,  so  that 
we  may  boldly  criticise  the  usages  around  us,  knowing  them  to 
be  but  imperfect  essays  toward  order  and  happiness,  and  no 
divinely  or  supcrnaturally  ordained  constitution  which  it  would 
be  impious  to  change.  We  have  witnessed  improvements  in 
physical  well-being  which  incline  us  to  expect  further  progress, 
and  make  us  keen-sighted  to  detect  the  evils  and  miseries  that 
remain.  Thus  ought  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity  to  work  in 
these  days,  and  thus,  plainly  enough,  it  does  work.  These  in- 
vestigations are  constantly  being  made,  these  reforms  com- 
meneecli"  —  Ecce  Homo. 
11 


162  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

sister,  and  bride.  But,  alas  !  the  practical  mystery 
with  an  immense  number  of  women  still  remains  ; 
and  that  is,  how  to  find  a  home.  A  father's  house 
is  no  longer  a  home  to  many  a  young  woman  ;  per- 
haps that  father  is  poor,  and  the  burden  of  years 
is  at  last  superadded  to  that  of  poverty.  He  cheer- 
fully toiled  for  his  child  while  she  was  young  and 
necessarily  dependent  upon  him ;  and,  as  she  grew 
up  to  womanhood,  he  stinted  not  to  bestow  upon 
her  such  learning  and  such  accomplishments  as  his 
scanty  means  could  command  ;  and  his  heart  was 
often  cheered  by  the  hope  of  seeing  her  well  mar- 
ried and  well  settled  in  life  :  but,  as  these  hopes  are 
not  realized,  he  begins  to  feel  the  burden  of  her 
maintenance.  "  She  is  old  enough  to  provide  for 
herself,"  and  "Why  doesn't  she  get  married?" 
Sure  enough!  poor  thing,  why  doesn't  she?  But 
oh  !  how  cruel  to  reproach  her  with  her  involuntary 
dependence  and  her  miserable  lot !  And  it  is  an 
immense  relief  to  her,  when  it  is  at  length  decided 
that  she  must  go  out  to  service.  And  so  she  goes 
to  toil  for  bread  among  strangers.  Her  frail  form 
is  overburdened,  and  often  broken  down,  by  unre- 
mitting ttud  ill-requited  labor^  and  her  young  hearlr 


OF  MARRIAGE,  163 

not  unfrequently  corrupted  aud  hardened  by  un- 
avoidable contact  and  contamination  with  vice. 

THE   harlot's   progress. 

What  wonder  is  it,  then,  that,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, the  unprotected,  wearied,  homesick  girl 
should  yield  a  reluctant  ear  to  the  seductive  flat- 
teries of  the  profligate  libertine,  who  scruples  not 
to  utter  vows  of  constancy,  and  draw  fond  pictures 
of  future  aflluence,  to  be  shared  with  her  ;  but  who, 
having  accomplished  his  fiendish  purpose,  and 
stolen  from  her,  forever,  her  only  dower  of  inno- 
cence and  purity,  now  ignores  his  vows  and  prom- 
ises, and  casts  her  off,  to  seek  and  ruin  another 
victim  !  What  shall  become  of  that  poor,  desolate, 
guilty,  heart-broken  wretch  thus  ruthlessly  aban- 
doned ?  Alas !  the  result  is  scarcely  doubtful :  it 
is  too  often  experienced.  Despised  by  herself  no 
less  than  by  the  world,  driven  in  anger  from  the 
paternal  threshold,  the  gates  of  honest  toil  and  the 
doors  of  Christian  charity  closed  against  her,  she 
yields  to  hopeless  despair,  and,  even  for  the  mis- 
erable purpose  of  prolonging  a  wretched  existence, 
she  abandons  herself  at  length  to  a  life  of  open 


164  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

shame ;  becoming  herself  the  means  of  propagatp- 
ing  that  misery  of  which  she  is  such  an  unhappy 
victim. 

The  artificial  system  of  monogamy  offers  up 
other  sacrifices  on  the  unholy  altar  of  abandoned 
lust,  besides  those  furnished  from  among  the 
daughters  of  toil  or  the  victims  of  seduction. 
The  accomplished,  the  refined,  the  proud,  and  the 
wealthy  have  furnished  their  full  proportion  to 
swell  the  aggregate  number  of  the  lost.  We  hope, 
of  course,  that  much  the  larger  portion  of  women 
who  have  been  well  brought  up,  and  have  failed  to 
marry,  have  lived  and  died  honest  old  maids. 
They  never  quite  lost  their  hope.  Poor,  simple 
souls,  they  had  always  been  told  that  their  hus- 
bands would  come  for  them  by  and  by  ;  that  there 
is  a  Jack  for  every  Gill,  as  many  men  as  women 
in  the  world  ;    and  so  they  sat  and  waited,  — 

"Rusticus  expcctat,  dum  defluat  amnis  ;  at  ille 
Labitur  et  labetur  in  omne  volubilis  aevuiu." 

And  thus  the  ceaseless  tide  of  human  life  rolls 
on  and  on,  the  number  of  competitors  among  mar- 
riageable maids  abates  not,  the   number  of  men 


Ot  MABRIAGE,  165 

who  are  ready  to  marry  augments  not.  Some, 
therefore,  among  the  higher  and  the  middling  ranks 
of  life,  who  ought  to  die  old  maids,  according  to 
the  system  of  monogamy,  do  not  so  die.  The  very 
pride  and  spirit  of  accomplished  women  have  some- 
times proved  their  ruin.  When  they  have  dis- 
covered that  real  men  are  comparatively  rare  in 
the  matrimonial  market,  and  that  there  are  more 
rakes  and  triflers  than  honest  lovers  in  society,  and 
that  there  cannot  be  husbands  and  homes  provided 
for  more  than  half  the  women,  —  being  unable  to 
suppress  all  their  strong  susceptibilities  of  love,  and 
unwilling  to  surrender  all  their  rights  to  its  enjoy- 
ment,—  they  have  deliberately  determined  to  en- 
joy what  they  can  without  marriage ;  and  thus  to 
defy  the  scorn  of  men  and  the  wrath  of  God. 

But  passion  does  not  impel  so  great  a  number  of 
intelligent  women  to  self-abandonment,  as  a  desire 
of  self-support  and  a  dread  of  being  an  intolerable 
burden  to  others.  Under  such  apprehensions,  many 
unhappy  women,  who  had  been  nursed  in  the  lap 
of  luxury,  and  accustomed  to  every  indulgence 
during  childhood,  have  found,  after  coming  of 
age,  that  as  year  after  year  passed  round,  and  no 


166  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

eligible  opportunity  of  marriage  occurred,  their 
presence  at  home  was  becoming  more  and  more 
unwelcome,  and  their  formidable  bills  of  expenses 
more  and  more  reluctantly  allowed,  till  they  have 
at  last  fled  from  those  halls  of  wealth,  and  from 
an  intolerable  dependence  on  churlish  relatives,  to 
a  still  more  wretched  existence  in  the  haunts  of 
public  vice. 

How  great  is  the  injustice  and  oppression  of  the 
social  system  which  makes  no  other  provision  for  so 
many  of  its  most  beautiful  and  originally  innocent 
daughters  than  this  !  Well  may  the  poet  thus  rave 
against  the  social  tyranny  of  our  system. 

"  Cursed  be  the  social  lies  that  warp  us  from  the  living  truth  ; 
Cursed  be  the  social  wants  that  sin  against  the  strength  of 
youth: 
i     Cursed  be  the  sickly  forms  that  err  from  honest  Nature^s 
I  rule."  Tennyson. 

MONOGAMY  CAUSES  CHASTITY  AND  RELIGION   TO   BE 
HATED. 

Monogamy  being  partial  in  its  privileges,  and 
oppressive  in  its  prohibitions,  like  every  other  op- 
pressive and  unjust  thing,  provokes  resentment  and 


OP  MARRIAGE,  167 

i&nmity,  and  cannot  be  thoroughly  maintained  and 
honestly  observed.  Human  nature  is  constantly 
rebelling  against  it,  and  is  persistently  asserting  its 
inherent  and  inalienable  right  to  all  the  benefits  of 
love  and  marriage,  of  which  this  system  has  de- 
prived it.  These  struggles  for  freedom  from  the 
oppression  of  monogamy,  being  made  in  ignorance 
of  the  privileges  of  polygamy,  have  assumed  the 
form  of  defiant  transgression  against  the  laws  of 
chastity  itself;  for  the  popular  conscience  is  so 
depraved  by  the  erroneous  education  of  our  social 
system,  as  to  regard  the  restrictions  of  monogamy 
as  identical  with  tho^e  of  religion.  And,  finding 
them  too  hard  to  be  borne,  instead  of  resorting  to 
the  just  and  proper  alternative  of  polygamy,  many 
persons  have  broken  away  from  all  moral  restraint 
whatever,  have  given  loose  rein  to  impetuous  pas- 
sion, and  have  become  lost  to  every  sentiment  of 
virtue  and  to  every  hope  of  heaven. 

As  Christianity  itself  was  outraged  and  repu- 
diated at  the  period  of  the  French  Revolution,  on 
account  of  the  abuses  of  Roman  Catholicism,  with 
which  the  popular  mind  had  confounded  it  (Roman- 
ism being  the  only  acknowledged  form  of  Chris- 


168  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

tianity  then  known  in  that  country,  so  that,  when 
they  rose  against  it,  they  rose  against  Christianity 
itself,  and  became  raging  demons  of  barbarity  and 
crime),  so  now,  throughout  Europe  and  America,  is 
chastity  outraged  and  religion  repudiated  on  ac- 
count of  the  unjust  restrictions  which  monogamy 
has  instituted  in  their  names.  But  neither  religion 
nor  chastity  is  the  real  object  of  this  hatred. 
All  men  sincerely  respect  the  one  and  revere  the 
other.  Yet  many  cannot  see  how  to  assert  their 
natural  rights  and  achieve  their  long-lost  freedom 
without  destroying  both.  Polygamy  alone  solves 
the  problem  how  those  rights  can  be  enjoyed  while 
chastity  is  preserved  and  religion  maintained ;  for 
polygamy  alone  can  honestly  furnish  sufficient  in- 
dulgence of  love  to  all  the  men,  and  sufficient  pro- 
tection of  marriage  to  all  the  women.  Monogamy 
says  to  half  the  women,  "  Ye  cannot  marry,  and 
hence  ye  shall  not  love  ; "  and  to  every  man  it 
says,  "  Thou  canst  marry  but  one  woman,  and  one 
only  shalt  thou  love,"  without  regard  to  the  condi- 
tion of  that  woman,  or  her  ability  or  inability  to 
meet  his  conjugal  wants. 

It  is  a  physical  fact  that  women  are  not  only 


OF  MARRIAGE,  169 

less  inclined  to  amorous  passion  than  the  men,  at 
all  times,  but  they  are  also  subject  to  interruptions 
and  periodical  changes,  which  men  do  not  expe- 
rience. During  the  long  period  of  lactation,  or 
nursing,  most  women  have  a  positive  repugnance 
to  the  embraces  of  love,  as  well  as  during  the 
progress  of  certain  nervous  chronic  disorders  pecu- 
liar to  the  sex,  which  are  aggravated,  if  not  caused, 
by  frequent  connubial  intercourse  ;  so  much  so,  that 
some  medical  men  insist  upon  entire  separation 
from  the  marriage-bed  during  the  continuance  of 
these  disorders,  and  also  during  the  period  of  lacta- 
tion. At  such  times,  one  would  suppose  that  no 
civilized  man,  or  at  least  that  no  Christian  man, 
could  be  so  brutal  and  so  cruel  as  to  force  his  wife 
to  yield  to  his  propensities  against  her  own  incli- 
nations and  in  spite  of  her  repeated  and  earnest 
remonstrances :  but  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  there  are  many  thousands  of  just  such  Chris- 
tian men  ;  for  what  can  the  poor  monogamist  do  ? 
The  healthful  currents  of  vigorous  life  impel  him 
to  amorous  desire ;  and  he  cannot  afford  to  shut 
down  the  gates  or  to  shut  off  the  steam.  To  do  so 
would  involve  immense  loss  of  pleasure  and  of 


170  HISTORY  AND  PniLOSOPHY 

power.  The  passions  furnish  the  only  streams  to 
turn  the  machinery  of  action ;  and  love  is  the 
strongest  of  them  all.  While  there  is  the  hope  of 
indulgence,  the  machinery  runs  smoothly,  and  the 
whole  man  is  full  of  life  and  buoyancy  and  power ; 
but,  if  this  master-passion  must  be  repressed,  its 
unnatural  restraint  absorbs  all  the  remaining 
strength  of  the  man,  and  he  is  no  better  than  a 
hermit  or  a  monk.  Hence  no  vigorous  man  is 
willing  to  endure  this  restraint.  Yet  the  Christian 
monogamist  has  been  taught  that  it  is  both  a  sin 
and  a  shame  to  look  for  the  gratification  of  his 
desires  away  from  home  ;  so  the  poor  heart-broken 
and  back-broken  wife  must  submit  to  torture,  and 
so  the  otherwise  kind  and  honorable  husband  must 
commit  violence  upon  his  dearest  friend,  whom  he 
has  most  solemnly  promised  to  love  and  to  cherish, 
in  sickness  and  in  health,  till  death  shall  part  them. 
Many  a  poor  wife  then  prays  for  death  to  part 
them  soon.  But  other  men,  at  such  times,  dis- 
daining to  avail  themselves  of  extorted  pleasures, 
which  can  afford  so  little  satisfaction,  and  despising 
that  religion  which  will  justify  or  allow  such  cruel 
brutality,   then    steal    away  from    their   unwilling 


OF  MARRIAGE,  171 

wives,  and,  in  defiance  of  the  most  solemn  obliga- 
tions and  sacred  laws  of  God  and  man,  go  and  do 
worse  ;  defiling  the  beds  of  virgin  innocence,  or 
wasting  their  health  and  strength  upon  vile  prosti* 
tutes.  Which  horn  of  this  trilemma  should  the 
vigorous  husband  of  this  invalid  woman  choose ; 
imbecile  continence,  wicked  licentiousness,  or  matrix 
monial  brutality  ?  Would  not  polygamy  be  an  alter- 
native preferable  to  either?  would  it  not  be  more 
just  and  more  merciful  than  either?  It  is  just  and 
merciful  to  both  the  men  and  the  women  ;  it  pre- 
serves the  marriage-bed  undefiled  ;  it  provides  hus- 
bands for  all  the  women ;  and  it  allows  each  man 
to  take  more  than  one  wife  when  circumstances 
warrant  and  require  it.  And  they  often  do  require 
it.  The  extraordinary  vehemence  and  intensity  of 
the  amorous  propensity  which  some  men  expe- 
rience is  sufficient  of  itself  to  require  it.  Such 
men  can  no  more  restrain  this  desire  than  that  for 
their  necessary  food.  They  may  call  to  their  as- 
sistance every  motive  to  continence  that  can  be 
drawn  from  heaven  and  earth  and  hell,  but  they 
often  call  in  vain  ;  for  the  intensity  of  this  passion 
sweeps  down  every  barrier,  and  rushes  to  its  gi*ati- 


172  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

fication.  If,  then,  there  will  be  and  there  must  bo 
indulgence,  let  it  be  such  as  is  regulated  and  con- 
trolled by  divine  and  natural  law.  God  who  made 
man,  and  who  knows  w^hat  is  in  man,  has  provided 
sufficient  means  to  supply  his  natural  amorous 
wants.  Marriage  is  that  means  ;  and,  as  one  wife 
is  not  always  sufficient,  he  has  provided  more. 
There  are  women  enough,  and  no  man  need  be 
either  pining  or  sinning  for  the  want  of  them. 

"  Take  the  good  the  gods  provide  thee  : 
Lovely  Thais  sits  beside  tliec, 
Blooming  like  an  Eastern  bride, 
In  flower  of  youth  and  beauty's  pride. 
Happy,  happy,  happy  pair  1 
None  but  the  brave, 
None  but  the  brave, 
None  but  the  brave  deserves  the  fair/* 

GREAT  MEN  ARE   ALWAYS   POLYGAMISTS. 

And  it  is  the  brave,  the  gifted,  the  talented,  that 
deserve  the  fair,  who  have  always  desired  the  fair, 
and  won  the  fair.  "  Lovely  Thais  "  never  refuses 
to  unveil  her  charms  to  the  true  hero.  Great  men 
always  recognize  the  voice  of  God  in  the  voice  of 


OF  MARRIAGE.  178 

Nature,  no  matter  under  what  social  system  they 
may  live.  They  yield  to  the  natural  and  the 
divine  behests,  even  though  they  transgress  the 
laws  of  ordinary  social  life.  They  obey  God  rather 
than  men  ;  and  this  obedience  is  the  first  element  of 
their  greatness.  Ordinary  laws  may  be  sufficient 
to  restrain  ordinary  men  ;  but  when  a  Samson  is 
within  their  bonds,  those  bonds  are  snapped  asun- 
der like  the  green  withes  and  the  new  ropes  of 
Delilah.  Yet,  were  not  our  social  laws  so  mani- 
festly arbitrary  and  oppressive,  such  eminent  phi- 
losophers as  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Bacon,  such  noble 
heroes  as  Alexander,  Caesar,  Napoleon,  and  Nelson, 
such  divine  poets  as  Goethe,  Burns,  and  Byron, 
and  such  enlightened  statesmen  as  Pericles,  Augus- 
tus, Buckingham,  Palmerston,  and  Webster,  and 
many  thousands  more,  would  never  have  incurred 
the  odium  of  libertinism  as  they  have.  Although 
they  lived  under  the  system  of  monogamy,  they 
would  not  and  did  not  submit  to  it.  Their  noble 
natures  required  a  larger  indulgence,  and  they  took 
it,  law  or  no  law,  like  brave  men  as  they  were. 
And  there  are  many  more  such  men  than  the  world 
dreams  of  in  its  narrow  monogamous  philosophy ; 


174  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  yet  it  is  a  shame  and  a  pity  that  our  social  laws 
cannot  be  so  amended,  and  brought  into  harmony 
with  those  of  God  and  Nature,  that  our  noblest 
men  would  yield  them  the  most  prompt  obedience. 
And  \A  it  not  a  sad  pity,  a  burning  shame,  and  a 
fearful  wrong  that  our  laws  are  such,  that  such  men 
cannot  acknowledge  their  mistresses,  and  avow 
their  children?  The  wrongs  of  these  women  and 
children  are  crying  to  God  from  the  ground,  and 
he  will  hear  and  judge.  These  great  men  are 
brave  ;  but  they  are  not  brave  enough.  They  have 
no  just  right  to  practise  their  polygamy  in  the 
dark.  Let  us  have  either  an  honest  monogamy  or 
an  avowed  polygamy.  Hence  it  is  that  I  am  called 
by  the  justice  of  God  and  the  sufferings  of  human- 
ity to  appeal  to  every  honorable  sentiment  in  man- 
kind in  behalf  of  a  greater  freedom  to  marry,  and 
a  greater  purity  of  the  marriage  relation.  Let 
us  have  such  marriage  laws,  that  whatever  rela- 
tions any  honorable  man  shall  determine  to  form 
with  the  other  sex  can  be  honorably  formed  and 
honorably  maintained. 


OF  MARRIAGE,  175 

HYPOCRISY    OF    MONOGAMY. 

But  an  honest  monogamj  is  an  impossibility. 
Wherever  it  is  practised,  it  is  a  system  of  hypocrisy. 
It  is  a  veil  of  abstemiousness  assumed  to  conceal  a 
mass  of  hidden  corruption.  Its  direct  tendency  is 
to  stimulate  the  contemptible  vices  of  intrigue  and 
lying,  as  well  as  the  equally  detestable  ones  of  pros- 
titution and  adultery.  By  attempting  to  deprive 
one-half  the  women  of  any  lawful  and  honorable 
means  of  amorous  pleasure,  and  by  allowing  the 
men  only  partial  and  inadequate  means,  it  impels 
a  multitude  of  each  sex  to  secret  transgression,  or 
else  to  open  profligacy  ;  and  thus  the  laws  of  chas- 
tity are  violated  on  every  hand,  and  truthfulness, 
integrity,  purity,  and  honor  are  becoming  but  un- 
meaning terms. 

No  one  familiar  with  social  life  in  Europe  will 
dare  to  dispute  that  a  large  proportion  of  the 
upper  classes  of  society  there  are  addicted  to  some 
form  of  licentiousness.  It  is  often  observed  there, 
that,  as  soon  as  the  women  marry,  they  throw  off 
the  restraints  of  chastity,  and  encourage  secret 
lovers ;  and  while  each  of  the  men  live  openly  with 


176  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

one  woman  only,  or  with  none,  yet  they  indulge  in 
promiscuous  criminal  intercourse  to  an  incredible 
extent.  Now,  which  social  system  is  the  more 
honorable  and  manly,  the  more  virtuous  and  pure, 
the  one  more  in  accordance  with  Nature  and  the 
laws  of  Nature's  God,  —  a  pretended  and  a  corrupt 
monogamy,  or  an  open  and  honest  polygamy? 
Which  manifests  the  more  base  and  selfish  pas- 
sion,—  the  man  who  espouses  the  partners  of  his 
love,  and  takes  them  to  his  home  and  his  heart, 
and  provides  for  them  and  their  children,  or  the 
man  who  steals  away  from  his  house  in  the  dark, 
and  indulges  his  dishonorable  and  degrading 
passion  in  secret  places,  and  then  abandons  the 
partners  of  his  guilty  pleasure  to  a  life  of  wretch- 
edness and  shame  and  want? 

"  Domestic  happiness,  thou  only  bliss 
Of  Paradise  that  has  survived  the  fall ! 
Though  few  now  taste  thee  unimpaired  and  pure,  .  . 
Forsaking  thee,  what  shipwreck  have  we  made 
Of  honor,  dignity,  and  fair  renown  ! 
Till  prostitution  elbows  us  aside 
In  all  our  crowded  streets ;  and  senates  seem 
Convened  for  purposes  of  empire  less 
Than  to  release  the  adulteress  from  her  bond.** 

Thb  Task. 


OF  MARRIAGE,  VII 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE   NECESSARY   RELATION    OF   MONOGAMY 
TO  IMMORALITY  AND  CRIME. 

MARRIAGE   PREVENTS   CRIME. 

It  is  an  acknowledged  fact  that  crime  is  much 
more  prevalent  among  unmarried  persons  than 
among  the  married  ;  for  the  married  man's  family 
becomes  a  pledge  to  society  for  his  good  behavior : 
nor  can  the  married  woman  disgrace  herself  with- 
out disgracing  also  her  husband  and  her  children. 
That  -system,  therefore,  which  provides  marriage 
for  the  greater  number  must  be  the  more  favora- 
ble to  the  promotion  of  public  virtue  and  morali- 
ty. It  has  already  been  demonstrated  that  polyg- 
amy provides  for  the  marriage  of  the  greater 
number  of  the  women  than  monogamy  can  ;  and 
it  will  not  be  difficult  to  prove  that  it  also  con- 
duces to  the  marriage  of  the  greater  n\imber  of 
the  men  :  for  there  are  always  a  great  many  men 
12 


ITS  UISTORY  AND  PUILOSOPHY 

wlio  will  not  marry,  so  long  as  they  can  obtain 
tUe  gratification  of  their  propensities  without  mar- 
riage, which  they  can  do  as  long  as  there  are  so 
many  unmarried  women  as  there  must  be  where- 
ever  monogamy  prevails.  The  more  rich  and 
luxurious  monogamous  society  becomes,  the  more 
abandoned  women  there  will  be,  and  the  fewer 
marriages  and  the  more  crime.  But  let  the  sys- 
tem of  polygamy  be  adopted,  and  then  all  the 
women  will  be  wanted  for  wives  ;  and,  as  they 
can  then  obtain  husbands  and  homes  of  their  own, 
but  few  will  prefer  to  follow  a  loose  and  vicious 
course  of  life.  And  then  the  men,  being  deprived 
of  the  opportunity  of  illicit  indulgence,  will  be 
compelled  to  marry  ;  and  their  marriage  will  refine 
and  humanize  them,  and  preserve  them  from 
many  of  those  vices  and  immoralities  to  which 
they  are  now  addicted.  There  are  many  crimes 
against  which  the  moral  sentiment  of  humanity 
revolts,  but  which  are  constantly  forced  upon  man- 
kind by  the  tyranny  of  monogamy,  and  which 
nothing  but  a  return  to  the  purer  system  of 
polygamy  can  restrain  and  prevent.  Among 
many  of  these  crimes  and  moral  evils  caused  or 


OF  MARRIAGE.  l"?a 

aggravated  by  monogamy,  aud  which  would  be 
greatly  diminished  by  polygamy,  I  can  mention 
only  a  few. 

ADULTERY. 

The  violation  of  the  marriage-vow  constitutes  the 
crime  of  adultery,  —  a  crime  which  has  always 
been  regarded  with  the  greatest  detestation  among 
mankind,  and  which,  in  ancient  times,  was  punished 
with  death.  The  definition  of  adultery,  like  that  of 
marriage,  depends  upon  the  social  system  which  we 
adopt.  According  to  the  system  of  monogamy,  if 
any  married  person  has  sexual  intercourse  with  any 
one,  except  his  own  wife,  or  her  own  husband, 
then  he  or  she  is  guilty  of  adultery  ;  but  if  the 
other  party  to  the  same  act  be  unmarried,  then 
that  unmarried  person  is  not  guilty  of  adultery, 
but  of  fornication  only.  That  is,  if  a  married 
man  has  intercourse  with  another  man's  wife,  then 
both  are  guilty  of  adultery  ;  but  if  an  unmarried 
man  has  intercourse  with  a  married  woman,  then 
she  is  guilty  of  adultery,  but  he  is  not.  According 
to  the  system  of  polygamy,  if  any  man  has  inter- 
course with  another  man's  wife,  they  are  both 
guilty  of  adultery ;  but  if  any  man  has  intercourse 


180  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

with  an  unmarried  woman,  then  both  are  guilty 
of  fornication.  That  is,  it  is  the  married  or 
unmarried  state  of  the  woman,  and  not  of  the  man, 
that  determines  the  nature  of  the  crime ;  and  both 
parties  to  the  same  act  are  always  by  this  system 
held  guilty  of  the  same  oifence.  A  careful  exam- 
ination of  the  laws  of  God  and  of  Nature  will 
enable  us  to  determine  which  of  these  definitions 
is  correct,  and  will  also  assist  us  in  the  determina- 
tion of  the  more  important  question,  Which  social 
system  is  right? 

1.  If  a  married  woman  admit  any  other  man 
to  her  bed  except  her  husband,  her  offspring  be- 
comes spurious,  or  at  least  uncertain,  and  her  hus- 
band may  have  another  man's  child  imposed  upon 
him  instead  of  his  own,  to  be  supported,  and  to 
inherit  his  estate ;  but  no  such  uncertainty  occurs 
from  the  intercourse  of  one  man  with  several 
women. 

2.  If  a  wife  admit  the  embrace  of  another 
lover,  it  always  implies  an  alienation  of  her  affec- 
tions from  her  husband :  but  it  does  not  imply  an 
alienation  of  her  husband's  affections  to  take 
another  woman,  for  his  first  wife   is  not  always 


OF  MARRIAGE.  181 

capable  of  fulfilliag  his  conjugal  desires ;  and  it 
is  sometimes  as  much  out  of  regard  to  her  health 
and  comfort  as  to  his  own  gratification,  that  he 
is  impelled  to  take  another. 

3.  If  a  woman  is  having  intercourse  with  sev- 
eral men  at  the  same  time,  she  is  living  in  un- 
cleanness,  and  in  constant  liability  of  inducing 
within  herself,  and  communicating  to  all  her 
lovers,  the  most  loathsome  and  incurable  diseases  ; 
her  mind  and  heart  become  hopelessly  depraved, 
and  she  incurs  the  utter  loss  of  all  self-respect 
and  all  public  estimation :  but  no  such  diseases 
of  body  or  degradation  of  character  attach  to 
the  man  who  is  living  with  several  women. 

These  natural  laws  are  fully  ratified  and  con- 
firmed by  the  divine  law :  "  The  man  that  com- 
mitteth  adultery  with  another  man's  wife,  the 
adulterer  and  the  adulteress  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death."  "  But  if  a  man  entice  a  maid  that  is  not 
betrothed,  and  lie  with  her,  he  shall  surely  endow 
her  to  be  his  wife."  "  Because  he  hath  humbled 
her,  he  may  not  put  her  away  all  his  life."  ''  And 
Nathan  said  to  David,  Thou  art  the  man.  Thus 
Baith  the  Lord,  I  delivered  thee  out  of  the  hand  of 


182  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPJIY 

Saul,  and  I  gave  thee  tlij  master's  house  and  thy 
master's  wives  into  thj  bosom ;  and  gave  thee 
the  house  of  Israel  and  of  Judah,  and  if  that  had 
been  too  little,  I  would  moreover  have  given  thee 
such  and  such  things.  Wherefore  hast  thou  de- 
spised the  commandment  of  the  Lord  to  do  evil  in 
his  sight,  and  hast  taken  the  wife  of  Uriah  the 
Hittite  to  be  thy  wife?  Now,  therefore,  the 
sword  shall  never  depart  from  thy  house,  because 
thou  hast  despised  me,  and  hast  taken  the  wife  of 
Uriah  the  Hittite  to  be  thy  wife."  *  It  seems 
unnecessary  to  cite  further  proofs.  The  entire 
Bible  confirms  the  definition  of  adultery  as  given 
by  the  system  of  polygamy. 

The  civil  laws  of  those  States  practising  monog- 
amy, in  defining  adultery,  are  full  of  contradic- 
tions and  obscurities.  Their  theory  requires  that 
all  married  persons,  both  men  and  women,  who 
have  intercourse  with  any  others  except  their  own 
husbands  or  their  own  wives,  should  be  called 
adulterers,  and  considered  equally  criminal ;  but 
with  an  open  Bible  before  them,  and  living  Nature 

*  Ex.  xxii.  16;  Lev.  xx.  10;  Deut,  xxii.  22-29;  2  Sam.  xii. 
7-10 


0^  MARRIAGE.  183 

all  around  them,  they  approach,  soraetimes,  very 
near  to  the  distinctions  set  forth  in  polygamy. 
The  following  is  Dr.  Noah  Webster's  definition  : 
^'Adultery,  Violation  of  the  marriage-bed;  a  crime 
or  civil  injury  which  introduces,  or  may  introduce, 
into  a  family,  a  spurious  offspring.  In  common 
usage,  adultery  means  the  unfaithfulness  of  any 
married  person  to  the  marriage-bed.  By  the  laws 
of  Connecticut,  the  sexual  intercourse  of  any  man 
with  a  married  woman  is  the  crime  of  adultery  in 
both  ;  such  intercourse  of  a  married  man  with  an 
unmarried  woman  is  fornication  in  both,  and 
adultery  of  the  man,  within  the  meaning  of  the 
law  respecting  divorce ;  but  not  a  felonious 
adultery  in  either,  or  the  crime  of  adultery  at 
common  law,  or  by  the  statute.  This  latter 
offence  is,  in  England,  prooeerl^d  with  only  in  the 
ecclesiastical  courts."  i 

This  definition,  according  to  the  laws  of  Connec- 
ticut, is  the  very  one  which  polygamy  requires, 
with  the  exception  of  that  part  of  it  relating  to 
divorce  ;  and  doubtless  the  God-fearing  legislators 
of  the  "  Land  of  Steady  Habits"  who  framed  this 
statute  were  more  familiar  with  the   Bible   than 


184  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

with  Roman  codes,  and,  besides,  had  very  little 
respect  for  the  authority  of  popes  or  councils.  In 
Massachusetts,  also,  the  statute  requires  that 
."when  the  crime  is  committed  between  a  married 
I  woman  and  a  man  who  is  unmarried,  the  man 
shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  adultery."  Rev.  Stat, 
of  Mass.^  1860.  In  most  of  the  States  of  the 
American  Union,  however,  the  laws  define  adul- 
tery, according  to  common  usage,  as  the  theory  of 
monogamy  requires.  And  the  consequence  is,  that 
it  is  regarded  as  a  very  trifling  crime  by  the 
statutes  of  those  States ;  the  common  penalty  being 
only  one  hundred  dollars'  fine,  or  six  months'  im- 
prisonment, even  this  light  penalty  being  rarely 
inflicted  ;  for  the  public  conscience  is  so  depraved 
by  the  false  definitions  of  monogamous  jurispru- 
dence in  respect  to  this  crime,  that  few  men  will 
prosecute  and  few  juries  will  convict  either  an 
adulterer  or  an  adulteress. 

"  The  frequency  of  crimes  has  washed  them  white." 

Yet,  with  a  curious  inconsistency,  whenever  an 
injured  husband  appeals  to  the  higher  law  of  God, 
and  assumes  the  awful  responsibility  to  inflict  with 


OF  MARRIAGE.  185 

his  own  hand  the  penalty  of  deatli  to  the  adulterer, 
the  multitude  applaud,  or,  at  least,  excuse  the  vin- 
dictive act ;  and  men  of  undoubted  respectability 
are  thus  impelled  to  private  revenge,  not  only  in 
the  heat  of  resentment,  when  the  guilty  parties  are 
first  detected,  but  even  in  cool  blood,  and  as  an 
afterthought  for  vindicating  personal  and  family 
honor.  And,  when  he  is  arraigned  for  trial,  the 
jury,  sympathizing  with  him  as  the  injured  hus- 
band, are  almost  sure  to  acquit  him  with  applause. 
Instances  of  such  homicides  are,  unhappily,  too 
common  to  require  authentication.  Since  this  is 
the  state  of  our  public  morals,  who  are  the  bar- 
barians if  we  are  not?  What  is  barbarism  but 
private  revenge?  In  what  does  civilization  consist, 
if  not  in  maintaining  the  sacred  supremacy  of  law, 
and  in  furnishing  adequate  protection  and  vindica- 
tion of  life  and  honor?  But  the  monogamous  law 
of  adultery  is  so  contradictory  to  the  divine  law, 
and  so  absurdly  at  variance  with  common  sense 
and  common  justice,  that  injured  marital  honor 
now  has  no  redress  but  a  barbarous  one.  A  re- 
vision of  the  law  concerning  adultery,  defining  the 
crime,  as  polygamy  does,  in   accordance  with  the 


180  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

laws  of  God,  and  enforcing  it  by  an  adequate  pen- 
alty, is  all  that  is  necessary  to  disarm  the  assassin, 
and  to  invest  the  law  itself  with  that  majesty  and 
sanctity  which  a  true  Christian  civilization  demands; 

MURDER* 

It  is  a  notorious  fact,  that,  where  the  system  of 
monogamy  prevails,  the  most  common  cause  of 
murder  is  unhappy  marriages.  Husbands  murder 
their  wives,  and  wives  murder  their  husbands,  or 
incite  others  to  do  it,  almost  every  week.  When 
love  turns  to  hatred,  it  is  the  bitterest  kind  of 
hatred  ;  and  when  people  hate  each  other,  their 
hatred  becomes  the  more  intense,  the  more  closely 
they  are  bound  together.  The  bonds  of  matrimony 
are  softer  than  silk,  and  sweeter  than  wreaths  of 
flowers,  so  long  as  mutual  love  and  mutual  confi- 
dence subsist ;  but  "vvhen  these  are  banished  from 
the  domestic  altar,  and  their  places  usurped  by 
distrust  and  jealousy,  then  those  bonds  become 
heavier  than  iron  shackles,  and  more  corroding 
than  fetters  of  brass.  Under  such  cii'cumstances, 
a  separation  of  some  kind  is  eagerly  desired.  This 
desire   is   spontaneous   and    instinctive ;    but   the 


OF  MARRIAGE,  187 

raarriage-vow  has  been  so  solemuly  uttered  and 
recorded,  that  there  can  be  no  honorable  separation 
but  death.  Then  the  dreadful  crime  of  murder  is 
conceived  and  cherished  and  pondered  in  the  mind, 
until  it  takes  complete  possession  of  it.  The  idea 
of  murder  is  begotten  between  the  desire  of  dis- 
solving the  marriage  and  tlie  desire  of  maintaining 
one's  public  honor.  And  both  desires  cannot  be 
gratified  in  any  other  way.  Divorce  is  dishonor 
able.  It  occasions  endless  talk  and  scandal,  and 
divulges  family  secrets.  It  makes  one  inevitably 
notorious.  It  often  involves  immense  expense. 
Persons,  therefore,  whose  desires  are  naturally  im- 
petuous, and  who  are  determined  to  obtain  a  speedy 
separation  from  their  hated  husbands  or  wives,  are 
peculiarly  liable  to  this  crime.  They  study  out  a 
plan  that  promises  complete  success.  They  are 
quite  sure  that  they  can  manage  to  murder  their 
companions  without  being  found  out.  At  all  events, 
they  often  do  murder  them,  and  run  the  risk  of 
being  found  out,  as  well  as  the  additional  risk  of 
divine  punishment  in  the  world  to  come.  Many 
cases  of  murder  for  this  cause  never  are  found  out ; 
but  enough  are  discovered  to  prove  that  the  dread- 


188  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

ful  crime  is  one  of  frequent  occurrence.  It  has 
been  brought  to  light  that  some  men  have  mur- 
dered a  number  of  wives,  and  some  women  a  num- 
ber of  husbands  in  succession.  The  nursery  story 
of  Bluebeard  may  be  a  horrible  fiction  ;  but  it  is  a 
fiction  founded  on  fact :  there  must  be  some  veri- 
similitude about  it,  or  it  could  never  have  interested 
so  many  generations  as  it  has.  Many  well-authen- 
ticated instances  of  wife-murder  have  occurred  for 
which  no  excuse  of  jealousy  or  domestic  infelicity 
can  be  urged,  and  which  can  only  be  accounted 
for  on  the  ground  of  men's  capricious  desires  and 
love  of  change.  The  history  of  Henry  VIIT.,  king 
of  England,  and  his  six  wives,  most  of  whom  were 
successively  murdered  to  make  room  for  their  suc- 
cessors, is  an  obvious  and  an  authentic  instance. 

Now,  polygamy  furnishes  the  only  sufficient  pre- 
ventive of  this  horrible  crime  ;  for  almost  any  man 
would  sooner  support  an  extra  wife,  if  the  usages 
of  society  would  allow  it,  than  to  take  the  life  of 
his  present  wife,  at  the  imminent  risk  of  his  own. 
And  many  men  will  do  it,  and  are  now  doing  it, 
even  against  the  usages  of  society,  and  in  spite  of 
the  regulations  of  monogamy.     Thus  King  flenry 


OF  MARBIAGE.  189 

II.,  less  sanguinary,  or  more  independent  of  public 
opinion,  than  his  brilliant  descendant  above  men- 
tioned, still  permitted  his  queen  Eleanor  to  live, 
and  to  vv^ear  the  crown,  though  he  often  preferred 
the  society  of  the  fair  Rosamond  to  hers,  and  often 
repaired  to  her  sylvan  bowers  at  Woodstock  to 
enjoy  it.  And  most  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe 
have  followed  his  example  ;  but,  like  Charles  II. 
and  the  four  Georges,  they  keep  their  mistresses 
nearer  court  than  at  Woodstock. 

DIVORCE. 

The  marriage-relation  is  designed  to  be  a  per- 
manent and  an  inseparable  one.  The  parties  take 
each  other  by  the  hand,  and  mutually  plight  their 
troth,  for  better  or  for  worse,  to  love  and  to  cher- 
ish, in  prosperity  and  in  adversity,  in  health  and 
in  sickness,  till  death  shall  part  them.  Such  a 
union  is  most  honorable :  it  is  most  admirable. 
But,  under  the  system  of  monogamy,  it  is  often  im- 
practicable. Although  the  laws  of  Christ  allow  of 
but  one  cause  for  divorce,  —  the  unfaithfulness  of 
the  wife  to  the  marriage-vow,  —  and  although 
every  State  that  practises  monogamy  claims  to  be 


190  mSTOEY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

a  Christian  State,  yet  civil  laws  allow  of  divorce  for 
the  most  trifling  causes.  The  excuse  is  made,  that, 
when  married  persons  are  unhappy  in  their  mar- 
riage-relation, divorce  alone  can  prevent  neglect 
and  abuse  ;  and  it  may  prevent  murder.  So  they 
allow  them  to  commit  one  great  crime  to  prevent 
their  committing  another  and  a  greater.  This  is, 
of  course,  fallacious  reasoning.  But,  if  it  were  most 
exact  reasoning,  the  remedy  is  dangerous,  unneces- 
sary, and  directly  at  variance  with  the  laws  of 
God.  Polygamy  is  a  safer  and  a  surer  remedy  or 
rather  preventive  of  both  divorce  and  murder  than 
any  violation  of  divine  law  can  be.  The  laws  of 
God  and  of  Nature  always  harmonize  with  each 
other ;  and  the  only  manner  in  which  we  can  per- 
fect our  civil  laws  is  to  bring  them  into  perfect 
accordance  with  the  former. 

Most  men  who  desire  a  divorce  would  prefer 
polygamy,  if  it  were  practicable  and  lawful.  A 
man  does  not  often  undertake  to  repudiate  his 
present  wife,  until  he  begins  to  desire  another. 
And  that  other  one  is  already  selected  and  already 
loved  ;  but  the  love  cannot  be  consummated.  And 
nothing  but  the  desire  of  consummating  this  love 


OF  MARRIAGE.  191 

caiTies  him  through  with  the  divorce.  For,  if  the 
law  of  the  land  favors  the  divorce,  there  still  re- 
mains the  law  of  God  to  oppose  it ;  and  hence 
divorces  are  usually  difficult,  expensive,  annoying, 
and  slow.  It  took  Henry  VIII.  five  years,  with 
all  his  wealth  and  power,  to  divorce  himself  from 
his  first  wife,  Catharine  of  Aragou,  in  favor  of 
Anne  Boleyn,  with  whom  he  was  desperately  in 
love  all  the  while.  If  she  had  yielded  to  his  solici- 
tations, and  granted  him  illicit  gratification,  it  is 
not  at  all  probable  that  he  would  ever  have  prose- 
cuted the  divorce  to  its  termination.  And  thus  is 
every  divorce  more  or  less  tedious,  and  it  ought  to 
be.  Christianity  forbids  it,  the  wife  resists  it,  chiU 
dren  plead,  and  friends  expostulate  against  it,  the 
world  wonders  and  stares  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all 
opposition,  the  vehement  passions  of  men  often 
drive  them  through  it.  Yet  the  greatest  suff*ering 
of  all  is  that  of  the  man's  own  conscience,  who 
persists  in  it.  To  do  such  violence  to  the  most 
solemn  laws  of  God  and  the  most  honorable  senti- 
ments of  mankind  is  no  light  crime,  whatever  the 
laws  of  the  State  may  term  it.  Polygamy  fur- 
nishes the  only  preventive  qf  this  great  social  evil. 


1D2  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

If  a  man  loves  another  Avoman,  and  is  resolved  to 
have  her,  let  him  take  her,  and  keep  her,  and  keep 
his  first  one  also.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  never 
would  have  divorced  Josephine,  had  polygamy 
been  deemed  lawful  and  proper.  Yet  no  man  ever 
had  a  fairer  pretext  for  divorce  upon  any  mere 
prudential  considerations  tlian  he  had.'  Her  virtue 
was  unquestionable.  It  was  not  only  above  re- 
proach, it  was  above  suspicion.  But  all  hopes  of 
her  having  offspring  had  failed.  His  desire  for  an 
heir  was  most  intense,  most  natural,  and  most  com- 
mendable. It  seemed  to  be  all  that  was  wanting 
to  secure  the  stability  of  his  throne,  the  good  of  his 
people,  and  the  peace  of  the  world.  Yet,  accord- 
ing to  the  system  of  monogamy,  the  only  manner 
in  which  these  very  desirable  ends  could  be  at- 
tained Avas  by  the  divorce  of  Josephine,  by  whose 
alliance  he  had  been  brought  to  more  public  notice, 
and  been  greatly  assisted  in  his  successful  career, 
and  who  was  one  of  the  loveliest  and  noblest  women 
that  ever  wore  a  crown.  The  divorce  was  con- 
summated, the  reasons  for  it  were  publicly  an- 
nounced ;  but  the  moral  sense  of  the  world  was 
shocked,  and  Napoleon  was  at  once  pronounced  ^ 


OF  MARRIAGE.        .  193 

tyrant  and  a  monster.  And  this  act  is  still  held  by 
many  to  be  the  turning-point  both  in  his  personal 
character  and  in  his  public  career.  Before  this, 
all  his  history  is  bright ;  after  it,  all  is  dark.  One 
cannot,  even  now,  after  so  long  a  time,  contemplate 
the  tears  of  Josephine  and  the  subsequent  disasters 
of  Napoleon,  without  cursing  the  narrow  bigotry 
of  monogamy,  and  wishing  that  the  golden  age  of 
polygamy  had  returned  before  his  day. 

At  the  court  of  David,  King  of  Israel,  even  the 
rape  and  the  incest  of  Tamar  were  not  so  unpar- 
donable as  her  abandonment.  Although  shocked 
and  indignant  at  the  brutal  violence  of  her  half- 
brother  Amnon,  yet  her  tenderness  could  not  deny 
some  pity  to  the  intensity  of  his  passion.  "  Nay, 
my  brother,  do  not  force  me,"  she  said.  "  Speak 
to  the  king;  for  he  will  not  withhold  me  from 
thee."  But  when  his  lust  had  been  sated,  and 
he  commanded  her  to  be  gone,  she  refused  to  go  ; 
saying,  "  This  evil  in  sending  me  away  is  greater 
than  the  other."  *  Then  he  caused  her  to  be  put 
out  forcibly,  and  the  door  to  be  bolted.  It  was 
this  insulting  divorce  added  to  her  forcible  humilia- 


*  2  Sara.  xiil. 


194  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

tion  that  broke  her  heart.  The  latter  she  might 
forgive,  the  former  she  could  not ;  and  she  rent 
her  purple  robes,  and  went  out  crying  with  her 
hand  upon  her  head.  It  was  this  cruel  repudia- 
tion that  whetted  the  dagger  of  Absalom  to  avenge 
her  wrongs,  and  it  was  this  that  fills  up  the  meas- 
ure of  Amnon's  guilt  in  the  judgment  of  every 
honest  heart.  God  did  not  require  David  to  put 
away  Bathshcba  after  he  had  once  ravished  her, 
and  would  not  have  permitted  him  to  do  so,  had 
he  desired  it,  although  he  had  obtained  her  by 
blood  and  fraud.  His  punishment  must  come  in 
some  other  manner.  Their  marriage,  once  con- 
summated by  cohabitation,  was  complete  and  in- 
dissoluble. How  differently  would  a  similar  case 
be  noAV  decided  by  the  ecclesiastical  courts  of 
modern  Europe!  Can  men's  judgment  be  more 
just  than  God's? 

PROCURING   ABORTION. 

The  murder  of  the  child  in  embryo  is  a  crime 
prohibited  by  law,  and  most  repugnant  to  humani- 
ty. Yet  it  is  one  which  the  system  of  monogamy 
is  obli^red  to  wink  at  and  tolerate*      This  horrid 


OF  MABRIAGE.  105 

crime  is  becoming  more  and  more  common  every 
year,  till  it  is  now  somewhat  fashionable,  espe- 
cially as  it  is  more  commonly  practised  by  fashion- 
able people.  Not  many  years  ago,  the  person 
who  dispensed  drugs  for  such  vile  purposes  was 
branded  as  a  villain,  or  looked  upon  as  a  hateful 
hag ;  a  Locusta,  whose  fit  dwelling-place  was 
some  dark  cave  among  volcanic  mountains,  and 
whose  fit  companions  were  venomous  serpents  and 
wild  foxes :  but  it  is  now  currently  reported  that 
one  of  the  popular  compounders  of  these  death- 
dealing  drugs  is  deemed  worthy  of  the  honor  of 
knighthood,*  and  is  appointed  physician  extraor- 
dinary to  the  queen.  Almost  every  newspaper 
now  contains  a  well-displayed  advertisement,  ad- 
dressed "  to  the  ladies,"  setting  forth  the  power- 
ful properties  of  some  specific  for  ''  removing 
obstructions,"  and  ''  bringing  on  the  monthly 
periods,"  with  entire  certainty ;  and  although 
these  drugs  will  be  "  sure  to  cause  miscarriage," 
yet  they  are  at  the  same  time  so  "  mild  and  safe 
as  not  to  be  injurious  to  the  most  delicate  consti- 
tution."     Such  are  some  of  the   most   impudent 

*  Sir  r?Uames  Clarke. 


193  m STORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

claims  of  the  modern  abortionist.  But  I  cannot 
go  on. 

For  full  details  I  beg  to  refer  my  readers  to  the 
public  journals  of  the  day. 

But  the  manufacturers  and  the  consumers  of 
drugs  for  these  abominable  practices  are  not  the 
only  ones  responsible  for  the  crime.  Monogamy 
is  responsible  for  it.  The  entire  social  system  is 
corrupt.  The  most  respectable  merchants  and 
apothecaries  deal  in  these  drugs,  the  most  respect- 
able journals  advertise  them,  everybody  reads 
about  them ;  yet  no  protesting  voice  is  raised, 
either  against  the  use  of  them  or  the  traffic  in 
them.  The  ministers  of  religion,  the  proper 
censors  of  the  public  morals,  are  silent :  the 
subject  is  too  indelicate  for  them  to  allude  to.  The 
police-magistrates  and  other  officers  of  the  law 
make  no  effiDrt  to  bring  the  guilty  parties  to  jus- 
tice, except  in  the  most  shocking  and  notorious 
instances,  where  the  life  of  the  mother  is  taken,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  child. 

Intelligent  and  respectable  physicians,  who  have 
the  best  opportunities  of  knowing,  state  that  this 
vice  is  now  practised  more  commonly  by  married 


OF  MARRIAGE,  197 

women  than  by  the  unmarried ;  and  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  account  for  it.  Under  the  system  of 
monogamy,  the  wife  attempts  too  much,  and  phys- 
ical impossibilities  are  expected  and  required  of 
her.  She  alone  undertakes  to  supply  all  her  hus- 
band's conjugal  wants,  and  to  gratify  all  his 
amorous  desires ;  and  she  is  quite  conscious  that 
even  in  the  bloom  of  her  youth,  in  perfect  health, 
and  in  the  height  of  her  charms,  she  is  scarcely 
capable  of  doing  it :  and  she  dreads  to  have  any 
thing  happen  to  her  to  make  her  less  capable. 
Especially  if  she  has  already  borne  one  child, 
and  has  passed  through  the  long  period  of  lactation, 
she  remembers  its  effect  upon  herself  and  upon 
her  husband  with  alarm.  She  fancies  herself  in 
danger  of  losing  her  hold  upon  his  affections, 
which  she  wishes  to  retain,  of  course,  as  long  as 
possible.  She  therefore  takes  drugs  to  prevent 
fruitfulness,  and  to  preserve  her  form  and  beauty, 
in  order  to  prevent  her  husband's  affe^H'ons  being 
lavished  upon  others. 

And  if  the  system  of  monogamy  be  right,  then 
this  motive  is  commendable,  and  the  reasoning 
based  upon  it  is  entirely  valid.     No   wife   can  be 


198  HISTORY  AND  PTIILOSOPnY 

blamed  for  wishing  to  prevent  her  husband  from 
forming  illicit  attachments,  and  thus  bringing  dis- 
honor upon  himself  and  all  his  house  ;  and  the 
only  means  at  her  command  for  preventing  it  is 
io  concentrate  all  his  affections  upon  herself. 

But  polygamy  is  capable  of  suppressing  this 
vice,  or,  at  least,  of  greatly  diminishing  it,  by 
removing  its  most  powerful  motives.  Under  the 
system  of  polygamy,  the  burdens  as  well  as  the 
privileges  of  the  women  are  more  equally  distrib- 
uted. No  woman  is  required  or  expected  to  be 
always  prepared  for  her  husband's  embraces,  nor 
does  she  claim  any  more  than  she  is  able  to 
receive,  or  than  he  is  voluntarily  inclined  to  be- 
stow. If  she  is  full  of  life,  and  in  vigorous 
health,  and  is  capable  of  fulfilling  her  conjugal 
duties  alone,  it  is  well :  her  husband  is  a  happy 
man.  But,  if  she  is  not  able,  it  is  still  well.  Her 
husband  need  not  be  unhappy  ;  for  he  can  espouse 
another,  without  reproach  to  her  or  dishonor  to 
himself. 


OF  MAnmAGE,  199 

FECUNDITY     OUGHT     TO     BE     PROMOTED,    NOT 
DESTROYED. 

The  laws  of  God  and  of  Nature  concur  in 
bearing  unqualified  testimony  to  the  desirableness 
of  offspring.  It  is  the  proper  fruit  of  marriage, 
of  which  love  is  the  blossom.  The  blossom 
yields  a  delicious  but  an  evanescent  pleasure ; 
but  the  fruit,  after  diligent  culture  and  careful 
preservation,  is  a  source  of  perpetual  delight  and 
honor.  "  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  replenish 
the  earth  and  subdue  it,'*  constitutes  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  divine  blessing  pronounced 
upon  the  first  married  couple,  ^-  a  benediction  re* 
peated,  in  substance,  upon  the  occasion  of  every 
subsequent  marriage  the  particulars  of  which  are 
recorded  in  the  Holy  Bible.  When  the  parents  of 
Rebecca  sent  her  away  to  become  the  wife  of 
Isaac,  they  blessed  her,  and  said,  "  Be  thou  the 
mother  of  thousands  of  millions ; "  and  wheu 
Boaz  espoused  Ruth  the  Moabitess,  the  people  that 
were  in  the  gate,  and  the  elders,  said,  "  The  Lord 
make  the  woman  that  is  come  into  thy  house,  like 
Rachel  and  Leah,  which  two  did  build  the  house 


200  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPHY 

of  Israel."  "  Lo,  children  are  a  heritage  of  the 
Lord,  and  the  fruit  of  the  womb  is  his  reward. 
As  arrows  are  in  the  hand  of  a  mighty  man,  so 
are  the  children  of  the  youth.  Happy  is  the  man 
that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them."  "  Thy  wife 
shall  be  as  a  fruitful  vine  by  the  sides  of  thy 
house,  thy  children  like  olive-plants  round  about 
thy  table.  Behold  that  thus  shall  the  man  be 
blessed  that  feareth  the  Lord."  * 

As  fruitfulness,  on  the  one  hand,  is  alvvays  de- 
clared to  be  a  blessing,  in  the  Bible,  so  barrenness, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  declared  to  be  a  curse.  The 
most  affecting  and  the  most  memorable  prayers 
of  females  recorded  therein  are  those  which  beg 
for  offspring  ;  and  the  most  grateful  thanksgivings 
are  those  for  children  borne  by  them.  But  the 
unnatural  and  unholy  system  of  monogamy  which 
now  prevails  has  so  strangely  perverted  our  desires, 
that  it  seems  to  change  the  divine  blessing  into  a 
curse,  and  the  curse  into  a  blessing.  If  women 
would  now  dare  to  pray  for  what  they  wish,  they 
would  pray  for  barrenness,  instead  of  fruitfulness. 
Now,  there  must  be  something  radically  wrong  in 

*  Ps.  cxxvii.,  cxxviii. 


OF  MARRIAGE,  261 

a  social  system  which  thus  presumes  to  reverse  the 
course  of  Nature,  and  to  contradict  the  divine 
assurances  of  blessing  and  of  cursing ;  and  which 
has  so  fatally  and  deeply  poisoned  the  mysterious 
springs  of  life,  and  polluted  the  most  inviolable 
sanctuaries  of  female  purity  and  maternal  love. 

"  Our  Maker  bids  increase :  who  bids  abstain, 
But  our  destroyer,  foe  to  God  and  man  ?  " 

I  doubt  whether  there  can  be  any  form  of  licen- 
tiousness more  abhorrent  to  the  laws  of  God  and 
of  Nature  than  this  "  Murder  of  the  Innocents." 
Even  fornication  cannot  be  so  great  a  sin.  The 
unmarried  woman  who  has  a  child  in  the  natural 
way,  and  who  bestows  upon  it  a  mother's  love  and 
a  mother's  care,  cannot  thereby  become  so  guilty 
as  the  married  woman  who  wilfully  destroys  her 
offspring,  or  who  prevents  her  fruitfulness.  There 
is  great  danger  lest  the  general  smattering  of  medi- 
cal knowledge  among  us  may  do  more  harm  than 
good.  There  is,  alas !  a  positive  certainty  that 
presumptuous  quacks,  who  know  only  enough  of 
Nature  to  have  lost  their  reverence  for  her  laws, 
are  leading  many  of  our  honorable  women  astray, 


202      V        HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  are  poisoning  the  best  blood  in  our  land. 
These  women,  like  our  common  mother  Eve,  from 
unholy  and  intensely  selfish  motives,  prompted  and 
countenanced  by  our  system  of  monogamy,  are 
plucking  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil,  and  intermeddling  with  those  functions 
of  Nature  which  ought  to  be  let  alone.  No  honor- 
able physician,  who  is  master  of  his  profession, 
will  degrade  that  profession  so  ranch  as  to  descend 
to  such  vile  practice.  His  business  is  not  to  destroy 
life,  but  to  save  it.  He,  at  least,  has  learned  the 
most  profound  respect  for  the  laws  of  our  beinjf 

*'  A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing ; 
Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  Spring. 
There  shallow  draughts  intoxicate  the  brain ; 
But  drinking  largely  sobers  us  again." 

We  had  better  know  nothing  of  the  laws  of 
gestation  than  to  know  only  enough  to  evade  or 
violate  them  ;  for  they  cannot  be  violated  with  im- 
punity. The  time  will  come  when  the  young  wife 
who  now  destroys  her  unborn  offspring,  or  who 
otherwise  wilfully  and  wickedly  tampers  with  her 
reproductive  powers,  will  surely  mourn  their  loss, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  203 

and  will  mourn  as  one  that  cannot  be  comforted. 
Like  Rachel,  she  will  beg  and  pray  for  fruitfulness, 
and  say,  "  Oh  !  give  me  children,  or  else  I  die  ;  '* 
but,  not  like  Rachel,  she  will  beg  and  pray  in  vain* 
Those  delicate  organs  once  weakened  by  violent  or 
unnatural  means  rarely  regain  their  normal  con- 
dition, and  one  voluntary  abortion  may  be  followed 
by  many  involuntary  miscarriages.  She  loses  all, 
and  she  is  guilty  of  all ;  and  some  day  she  will 
surely  feel  both  her  loss  and  her  guilt,  till  it  be- 
comes, like  the  punishment  of  the  first  murderer,  a 
burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  Never  can  she 
know  by  blissful  experience  the  sweetness  of  a. 
mother's  love  ;  that  pure  and  fond  and  tender  and 
changeless  affection,  which  so  inspires  and  ennobles 
the  female  character.  Never  can  she  become  quite 
free  from  the  jealous  suspicions  of  her  husband, 
who,  against  his  will  and  all  his  better  judgment, 
is  a  perpetual  prey  to  the  green-eyed  demon. 
Never  can  the  spacious  halls  and  gloomy  apart- 
ments of  their  solitary  home  resound  with  the  in- 
nocent glee  of  their  children's  voices  ;  no  baby  in 
the  cradle  ;  no  "  daughter  singing  in  the  village 
choir "  or  the  Sunday-school  concert ;    no  son    to 


204  BlSTOnr  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

graduate  fropa  school  or  college,  or  to  inherit  and 
transmit  to  future  generations  the  faniily  name  and 
wealth  and  honors. 

This  is  no  fancy  sketch  nor  far-fetched  represen- 
tation, but  is  a  faithful  protraiture  of  many  of  our 
New-England  families.  The  curse  of  God  is  al- 
ready upon  us,  and  our  native  population  is  even 
now  giving  way  to  the  more  prolific  races  of  Eng- 
lish, Celts,  and  Germans.  God  gives  the  land  to 
those  who  obey  his  marriage-laws  to  '*  be  fruitful, 
and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue 
it."  As  the  Israelites  drove  out  the  ancient  Ca- 
naanites  who  made  their  children  pass  through  to 
Moloch,  and  as  they  took  possession  of  their  fruit- 
ful fields  and  vineyards,  already  planted,  and  of 
their  towns  and  cities,  already  built ;  so  these 
poorer,  more  natural  and  less  artificial  immigrants 
are  dispossessing  us.  I  quote  once  more  from  the 
Massachusetts  Registration  Report  for  1866,  page 
18. 

BIRTH-RATE   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

"  In  England,  during  the  twenty-six  years  1838- 
1863,  with  a  population  of  about  eighteen  millions, 
the   average   birth-rate   was   3.33    per   cent.     In 


OF  MARRIAGE.  205 

Massachusetts,  it  has  never  been  so  high.  In  the 
seven  years  1852-1858,  it  was  2.90.  In  the  five 
years  immediately  preceding  the  war,  1856-1860, 
it  was  2.85.  During  the  four  years  of  war,  1862- 
1865,  the  birth-rate  was  2.46.  We  find  it  now 
rising,  not  to  the  old  standard  of  2.85  or  2.90,  but 
to  2.69." 

Page  28  reads  as  follows,  — 

''  The  foreign-born  population  of  Massachusetts, 
by  the  census  of  1865,  was  265,486,  the  American 
population  999,976,  and  the  population  of  un- 
known nativity  1,569.  The  last  it  is  not  easy  to 
divide  ;  it  seems  nearer  the  probable  truth  to  divide 
them  equally.  We  have,  then,  1,000,761  Ameri- 
cans, and  266,270  foreigners.  And  they  produced 
in  1866,  —  the  Americans  16,555  children,  the 
foreigners  17,530  children  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  child 
was  born  to  every  ^0^^^  Americans,  and  to  every 
15^^!^  foreigners  ;  the  latter  class  being  four  times 
as  productive  as  the  former." 

The  birth-rate,  therefore,  of  the  Americans  of 
Massachusetts  for  the  year  1866  was  only  1.65 
per  cent ;  while  that  of  the  foreign  population 
was  6.59  per  cent.  At  this  rate,  not  many  gener- 
ations will  be  required  for  them  to  dispossess  us* 


206  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  the  satisfactory  analysis 
and  comparison  of  the  two  marriage-systems  to 
go  on,  to  any  greater  length,  with  this  painful  dis- 
section of  vice,  or  to  array  any  further  statistical 
proofs  in  confirmation  of  the  inherent  licentious- 
ness of  monogamy.  It  would  be  easy  to  show 
that  the  galling  bondage  of  restricted  marriage  has 
had,  and  is  now  having,  a  similar  effect  upon  the 
great  social  evils  of  insanity,  suicide,  and  self- 
pollution,  which  it  has  upon  those  other  forms  of 
vice  which  have  been  analyzed  above,  and  to 
prove  that  polygamy  would  tend  to  mitigate  them 
also.  If  these  hints  of  mine  are  seized  upon  and 
properly  developed  by  some  more  capable  writer, 
and  so  clearly  and  happily  set  forth  as  to  lead  to  a 
practical  reform,  it  will  be  honor  enough  for  me  to 
have  indicated  its  necessity  and  demonstrated  its 
possibility. 


OF  MAURI  AGE.  2G7 


CHAPTER    IX. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  POLYGAMY  ANSWERED. 

A  FEW  pages  will  now  be  devoted  to  a  consider- 
ation of  the  objections  which  have  been  urged 
against  the  system  of  polygamy.  And  it  may  be 
proper  to  say,  that  if  there  should  be  any  objec- 
tions to  it  which  are  not  here  answered  to  every 
one's  satisfaction,  yet  the  superiority  of  this  sys- 
tem is  still  maintained  and  proven,  as  long  as 
the  previous  demonstrations  remain  valid ;  the 
objections  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  It  is 
often  the  case  that  a  proposition  may  be  true,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  may  not  be  possible  to  answer 
all  the  objections  to  it.  There  are  unanswerable 
objections  to  a  democratic  or  popular  form  of 
government ;  and  yet  for  some  nations,  such  a 
form  of  government  may,  on  the  whole,  be  the  best 
one. 


203  HISTORY  AND  PBlLOtiOPIIY 

DOES   POLYGAMY   CAUSE   JEALOUSY? 

It  has  been  objected  that  polygamy  cannot  be 
reasonable  or  right,  since  it  causes  jealousy 
among  the  different  women  in  the  same  family. 
But  it  cannot  be  proved  that  jealousy  is  confined  to 
any  particular  social  system  :  it  is,  unfortunately, 
too  common  to  every  system.  It  is  inherent  in 
human  nature,  and  must  be  regarded  as  one  of 
its  inseparable  infirmities.  Yet,  so  far  from  being 
most  violent  under  the  system  of  polygamy,  the 
opposite  is  the  fact ;  for  it  is  always  most  violent 
when  secret  intrigue  is  carried  on,  and  when  the 
dreaded  rival  does  not  sustain  an  open  and  an  ac- 
knowledged relation  to  the  husband,  but  when  the 
tenderness  between  him  and  that  rival,  whether 
real  or  suspected,  is  only  secretly  indulged  :  so 
that  monogamy  really  furnishes  more  occasion  for 
the  exercise  of  this  cruel  passion  than  polygamy. 
In  the  latter  system,  the  claims  of  the  different 
w^omen  are  acknowledged  and  understood ;  the 
parties  all  stand  in  well-defined  relations  to  each 
other,  and  violent  jealousy,  under  such  circum- 
stances, must  be  comparatively  rare. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  209 

IS  POLYGAMY  DEGRADING   TO   WOMEN? 

It  has  also  been  objected,  that  polygamy  can- 
not be  reasonable  and  right,  since  it  places  men 
and  women  on  terms  of  social  inequality  ;  it  exalts 
man,  and  degrades  woman ;  it  makes  her  depend- 
ent on  his  will ;  it  demands  of  her  her  undivided 
love  and  fidelity  towards  him,  while  he  is  permit- 
ted to  lavish  his  affections  upon  as  many  as  he 
may  please.  But  all  this  is  not  degrading  to  her. 
It  is  the  only  thing  that  saves  her  from  degrada- 
tion. The  experience  of  every  age  and  of  every 
community  has  proved  that  many  men  cannot  and 
will  not  content  themselves  with  one  woman. 
There  must  be  polygamy,  or  else  there  must  be 
prostitution  ;  and  prostitution  is  wickedness,  and 
wickedness  is  degradation. 

Nor  is  there  any  thing  degrading  in  woman's 
dependence  upon  man.  This  dependence  is  nat- 
ural, and  honorable  to  her.  It  is  the  very  position 
which  she  herself  voluntarily  and  instinctively 
assumes  towards  him.  The  entire  code  of  polite, 
social  intercourse  between  the  two  sexes  is  founded 
on  this  principle  of  her  nature.  Not  only  in 
14 


210  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

times  of  real  danger,  but  at  all  times,  she  loves  to 
leaa  upon  the  strong,  brave  arm  of  man,  and 
willingly  confesses  her  own  timidity  and  weakness. 
And  these  qualities  are  so  far  from  degrading  her, 
that  they  only  render  her  the  more  attractive  and 
lovely.  The  manly  gallant  is  as  ready  to  afford 
assistance  as  she  is  to  accept  it.  In  riding,  in 
walking,  in  dancing,  in  sailing,  in  bathing,  in 
the  public  assembly,  in  the  social  gathering,  and 
everywhere  where  it  is  possible  to  receive  atten- 
tion and  accept  assistance  and  protection,  it  is 
equally  pleasing  and  ennobling  for  her  to  receive, 
and  for  him  to  bestow  them. 

woman's    rights. 

They  are  her  rights,  —  her  woman's  rights.  I 
believe  in  woman's  rights,  and  I  believe  that 
polygamy  is  the  system  that  can  best  assure  them 
to  her ;  for,  as  it  is  a  mathematical  certainty  that 
there  are  more  women  than  men  in  the  world, 
some  men  must  assume  the  protection  of  more 
than  one  woman  each,  or  some  women  must  be 
deprived  of  their  rights.  The  most  sacred  and  the 
most  precious  of  all  her  rights  are  her  rights  to  s^ 


OF  MARRIAGE,  211 

husbaul  and  a  home;  and  it  is  no  more  a  degra- 
dation to  her  to  share  that  home  and  that  husband 
with  another  woman  than  it  is  to  share  other 
benefits  and  other  attentions  from  the  same  man, 
in  common  with  other  women.  No  woman  con- 
siders herself  degraded  to  walk  abroad  with  her 
hand  upon  a  man's  arm  while  another  woman  has 
her  hand  upon  the  other  arm ;  thus  they  often 
appear  in  public,  at  balls  and  concerts  and  lectures 
and  churches.  For  the  time  being,  they  are  both 
willingly  dependent  upon  his  protection  and  his 
bounty ;  and  he  is  also  dependent  upon  each  of 
them  for  the  benefits  of  their  companionship  and 
the  charms  of  their  society.  He  could  not  so 
fully  enjoy  those  entertainments  without  them. 
For  example,  there  are  two  female  friends  residing 
together,  and  mutually  dependent  upon  each  other 
for  many  of  their  social  enjoyments,  and  for 
much  of  their  intellectual  and  moral  culture.  A 
worthy  young  man  of  their  acquaintance  calls 
upon  them  frequently,  and  admires  them  both ; 
and  they  enjoy  his  visits,  for  neither  of  them  have 
any  other  male  associate.  At  length  he  invites 
them  both  to  a  public  entertd-inment,     Neither  of 


212  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

them  would  be  willing  to  leave  her  friend,  and  go 
with  him  alone ;  nor  could  he  well  endure  the 
thought  of  enjoying  himself  •  abroad  with  one, 
while  the  other  would  be  deserted  and  neglected 
at  home,  —  the  other  who  would  enjoy  the 'enter- 
tainment so  much,  and  whose  enjoyment  would  so 
much  enhance  theirs.  Now,  if  this  triple  com- 
panionship shall  ripen  into  friendship,  and  the 
friendship  into  love,  and  the  love  shall  result  in  a 
triple  marriage,  where  is  the  degradation  ?  Would 
it  not  be  still  more  heartless  to  desert  either 
of  the  friends  now,  when  each  heart  is  thrilling 
with  the  harmonious  music  of  the  triple  love? 
Let  the  words  of  divine  wisdom  answer,  — 

"  Two  are  better  than  one,  .  .  .  and  a  three- 
fold cord  is  not  quickly  broken." 

There  is  a  want  in  the  female  nature  which 
impels  her  to  seek  and  to  appreciate  the  society 
of  a  male  friend,  which  no  number  of  associates 
of  her  own  sex  can  fully  satisfy.  I  have  stood  by 
the  gates  of  the  cotton-mill,  and  seen  the  multitudes 
of  female  operatives  stream  out  of  an  evening,  and 
I  marked  their  lonesome  appearance  as  they  re- 
paired to  their  respective  homes.     Homes,  did   I 


OF  MARRIAGE.  213 

say?  Ah  !  any  thing  but  homes,  —  their  boarding- 
houses.  There  I  have  seen  them  sit  down,  by 
scores,  to  the  dinner-table,  and  eat  their  dinners 
in  the  utmost  silence,  as  if  each  one  was  entirely 
isolated  from  all  social  and  agreeable  companion- 
ship. Oh,  what  loneliness !  how  hard  !  how  bit- 
ter !  Yet  many  of  them  were  radiant  with  the 
charms  of  womanhood,  and  each  one  capable  of 
adorning  and  blessing  a  home,  but  which  few  of 
them  will  ever  enjoy ;  for  tliey  are  not  only  the 
unwilling  victims  of  poverty  and  toil,  but  the 
willing  votaries  of  fashion,  and  the  unconscious 
slaves  of  monogamy. 

MASCULINE   POWER   AND    FEMININE    COMPLAISANCE. 

Those  qualities  of  mind  and  person  which  impel 
a  woman  to  seek  the  protection  of  the  stronger  sex, 
arising  from  her  natural  weakness  and  timidity, 
are  really  those  very  qualities  which  inspire  the 
deepest  admiration  ;  yet,  should  a  man  happen  to 
display  these  feminine  qualities,  they  only  render 
him  supremely  contemptible.  A  man  must  be 
strong,  self-reliant,  and  courageous.  No  woman 
can  devotedly  love  a  man,  unless  she  sees,  or  thinks 


214  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

she  sees,  in  liim  a  power  of  mind  or  of  body,  or  of 
both,  which  Nature  has  denied  to  her.  It  is  this 
power  which  she  intuitively  admires  and  venerates 
and  worships,  even  though  its  exercise  over  her 
may  be  arbitrary  and  tyrannical.  The  Sabine  ma- 
trons loved  their  Roman  lords  none  the  less  be- 
cause they  had  seized  them  with  the  strong  hand  ; 
and  a  woman  is  always  and  everywhere  more 
ready  to  forgive  the  too  great  ardor  and  boldness 
of  a  lover  than  his  unmanly  timidity  and  shame. 
For  a  wife  to  look  up  to  her  husband  for  authority 
and  guidance  is  as  natural  as  to  look  to  him  for 
protection  from  danger  ;  and  this  is  as  natural  as 
breathing.  It  is  therefore  true,  though  it  may 
seem  hard  to  some  to  admit  it,  that  it  is  his  right 
and  duty  to  exercise  authority,  and  her  right  and 
privilege  to  practise  complaisance  and  submission. 

"  Whence  true  authority  in  man ;  though  both 
Not  equal,  as  their  sex  not  equal  seemed  ; 
For  contemplation  he,  and  valor  formed  ; 
For  softness  she,  and  sweet  attractive  grace ; 
He  for  God  only,  she  for  God  in  him. 
His  fair  large  front  and  eye  sublime  declared 
Absolute  rule ;  and  hyacintliine  locks 


OF  MARRIAGE.  215 

Hound  from  Iiis  parted  forelock  manly  hung 
Clustering,  but  not  beneath  his  shoulders  broad ; 
She,  as  a  veil,  down  to  the  slender  waist 
Her  unadorned  golden  tresses  wore. 
Dishevelled,  but  in  wanton  ringlets  waved. 
As  the  vine  curls  her  tendrils,  which  implied 
Subjection,  but  required  with  gentle  sway,*'  &c. 

Paradise  Lost,  Book  iv. 

Yet  while  God  and  Nature  have  constituted  man 
the  supenor  to  woman  in  strength  and  courage  and 
authority,  these  principles  do  not  render  her  rela- 
tion to  man  one  of  degradation  or  even  of  general 
inferiority  ;  for  there  are  many  other  and  no  less 
admirable  qualities  in  which  she  surpasses  him. 
Her  moral  and  religious  sentiments  are  more  sus- 
ceptible, and  her  intellectual  perceptions  are  truer 
and  keener  in  respect  to  those  matters  requiring 
delicacy  of  taste  and  refinement  of  mind.  Her 
humane  sympathies  are  also  stronger ;  she  is 
sooner  moved  by  the  sentiments  of  compassion, 
benevolence,  and  charity.  Blessings  on  her  gentle 
heart !  What  a  dreary  world  would  this  be  with- 
out woman  !  And  it  is  only  polygamy  that  appre- 
ciates and  appropriates  her.  Monogamy  neglects 
her,  spurns  her,  corrupts  her,  and  desjrades  her. 


21G  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

IF  A  MAN  MAY  HAVE  A  PLURALITY  OF  WIVES,  WHY 
MAY  NOT  A  WOMAN  HAVE  A  PLURALITY  OF  HUS- 
BANDS ? 

(  Because  a  woman's  heart  is  so  constituted,  that 
I  it  is  impossible  for  her  to  cherish  a  sincere  love  for 
more  than  one  husband  at  the  same  time.  It  is 
even  difficult  for  her  to  believe  that  a  man  can 
cherish  a  sincere  and  honest  love  for  more  than  one 
woman  at  the  same  time.  It  is  difficult  for  her  to 
believe  it ;  for  she  cannot  comprehend  it.  Her  own 
instincts  revolt  against  the  thought  of  a  plurality  of 
husbands,  and,  judging  his  feeling  by  her  own,  she 
does  not  see  how  a  man  can  want,  or  at  least  can 
truly  love,  a  plurality  of  wives.  But,  as  this  point 
involves  a  constitutional  difference  of  sex,  it  is  one 
in  which  we  must  be  aware  that  our  feelings  can- 
not guide  us.  A  man  can  never  know  the  infinite 
tenderness  and  the  infinite  patience  of  a  mother's 
love,  except  imperfectly,  by  reason  and  observa- 
tion. His  experience  does  not  teach  him.  His 
paternal  love  does  not  exactly  resemble  it.  So  a 
woman  can  never  know  the  purity  and  sincerity  of 
a  man's  conjugal  love  for  a  plurality  of  wives,  ex- 


OF  MARRIAGE,  217 

cept  by  similar  observation  and  reason.  Her  con- 
jugal love  is  unlike  it.  Her  love  for  one  man 
exhausts  and  absorbs  her  whole  conjugal  nature  : 
there  is  no  room  for  more.  And  if  she  ever  re- 
ceives the  truth  that  his  nature  is  capable  of  a 
plural  love,  she  must  attain  it  by  the  use  of  her 
reason,  or  admit  it  upon  the  testimony  of  honest 
men. 

THE    SUN   AND   THE   PLANETS  ;     OR   MARRIAGE   LIKE 
GRAVITATION. 

It  would  be  as  impossible  and  as  unnatural  for  a 
pure-minded,  virtuous  woman  to  have  more  than 
one  husband,  as  for  the  earth  to  have  more  than  one 
sun;  but  it  is  not  unnatural  nor  impossible  for  a 
pure  and  noble-minded  man  to  cherish  the  most  de- 
voted love  for  several  wives  at  the  same  time  :  it  is  as 
natural  for  him  as  it  is  for  the  sun  to  have  several 
planets  at  the  same  time,  each  one  dependent  on 
him,  and  each  one  harmonious  in  her  own  sphere. 
To  each  planet  the  sun  yields  all  the  light  and  heat 
which  she  is  capable  of  receiving,  or  which  she 
would  be  capable  of  receiving,  were  she  the  only 
planet  in  the  sky.     Each  planet  attracts  the  sun  to 


218  IIISTOnY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

the  utmost  of  her  weight,  —  the  exhaustion  of  hef 
power  ;  and  the  sun  returns  her  attraction  to  an  ex- 
actly equal  degree,  and  no  more.  Not  one  planet  nor 
two,  nor  all  combined,  are  able  to  exhaust  his 
power,  or  move  him  from  his  sphere.  One  more 
illustration  :  if  a  strong  man  holds  one  end  of  a 
cord,  and  a  little  child  the  other,  and  they  pull  to- 
wards each  other,  the  tension  of  the  cord  is  meas- 
ured by  the  strength  of  the  child,  and  not  by  that 
of  the  man.  The  same  degree  of  power  is  felt  at 
each  end  of  the  cord.  The  strength  of  the  child  is 
exhausted,  that  of  the  man  is  not.  He  can  draw 
several  children  to  him,  sooner  than  they  could 
unitedly  draw  him  to  them.  A  similar  relation 
exists,  naturally,  between  the  male  and  the  female. 
He  is  the  sun,  they  are  the  planets.  He  is 
strong,  they  are  weak.  Let  us  not  find  fault 
with  the  ordinances  of  God,  nor  attempt  to  resist 
his  will. 

MASCULINE   RESPONSIBILITT   AND   CARE. 

The  responsibilities  of  the  man  are  in  propor- 
tion to  his  strength  and  authority.  He  must 
assume  the  care  and  provide  for  the  support   of 


OF  MARRIAGE,  219 

the  family ;  and  his  female  companioas  will  sub- 
mit to  this  authority,  if  they  are  wise  and  prudent, 
with  all  the  grace  and  gentleness  which  distin 
guish  their  sex. 

"  Thy  husband  is  thy  lord,  thy  life,  thy  keeper, 
Thy  head,  thy  sovereign ;  one  that  cares  for  thee 
And  for  thy  maintenance ;  commits  his  body 
To  painful  labor,  both  by  sea  and  land  ; 
To  watch  the  night  in  storms,  the  day  in  cold, 
While  thou  liest  warm  at  home,  secure  and  safe ; 
And  craves  no  other  tribute  at  thy  hands, 
But  love,  fair  looks,  and  true  obedience,  — 
Too  little  payment  for  so  great  a  debt. 
Such  duty  as  the  subject  owes  the  prince. 
Even  such  a  woman  oweth  to  her  husband  ; 
And  when  she's  fro  ward,  peevish,  sullen,  sour. 
And  not  obedient  to  his  honest  will, 
What  is  she  but  a  foul  contending  rebel, 
And  graceless  traitor  to  her  loving  lord  ? 
I  am  ashamed  that  women  are  so  simple 
To  offer  war  where  they  sliould  kneel  for  peace  ; 
Or  seek  for  rule,  supremacy,  and  sway, 
When  they  are  bound  to  serve,  love,  and  obey. 
Why  are  our  bodies  soft  and  weak  and  smooth, 
Unapt  to  toil  and  trouble  in  the  world ; 
But  that  our  soft  conditions  and  our  hearts 
Should  well  agree  with  our  external  parts  ?  " 

T  4MIXG  THE  Shrew  act  v.  scene  il. 


220  mSTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

The  capacity  of  a  man  to  attract  and  support 
several  women  must  depend  upon  the  amount  of  his 
talent,  his  fortune,  and  his  benevolence,  as  well  as 
upon  his  physical  strength  and  vitality.  There  are 
some  men  who  are  scarcely  able  to  attract  the  love 
and  provide  for  the  support  of  one  woman  ;  others 
are  well  able,  if  they  were  willing,  to  maintain 
several  wives,  but  they  are  too  penurious  and  too 
selfish  to  attempt  it:  and  such  men  do  not  deserve 
the  love  of  one.  But  there  are  others  who  are  both 
able  and  willing,  and  who  can  as  well  love  and  pro- 
vide for  several  as  for  one,  and  even  better  ;  for,  if 
a  man  of  immense  vitality  and  correspond! og  men- 
tality have  but  one,  she  must  necessarily  suffer 
from  the  superabundance  of  his  power,  and  per- 
haps, like  Semele  in  the  too  ardent  embraces  of 
Jove,  may  prove  an  early  victim  to  the  powerful 
demonstrations  of  his  love.  But  even  should  he 
use  the  utmost  tenderness,  and  never  forget  to 
restrain  his  burning  ardor,  yet,  so  long  as  he  lives 
under  the  system  of  monogamy,  such  a  husband 
must  often  be  the  occasion  of  the  keenest  suffering 
to  a  delicate  woman.  It  is  a  source  of  constant 
pain  and  grief  to  her  that  she   cannot  come  up  to 


OF  MARRIAGE,  221 

her  husband's  capacity,  nor  satisfy  his  conjugal 
requirements.  She  often  tortures  herself  with  the 
thought  that  he  cannot  love  her,  for  she  feels  her- 
self so  much  his  inferior,  and  so  utterly  unworthy 
of  his  love.  She  often  says  that  she  knows  he 
wishes  her  to  die,  that  he  migiit  marry  another. 
She  wishes  herself  dead.  She  is  madly  jealous 
of  every  other  woman  who  comes  within  the 
circle  of  their  acquaintance,  even  though  her 
husband  may  have  no  fancy  for  her  ;  but  the  poor 
wife  fears  he  may  have,  and  this  constant  fear  is 
worse  than  the  worst  reality.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  he  were  a  polygamist,  and  this  same 
woman  were  one  of  his  wives,  she  would  then  be 
happy  and  content.  For  she  would  continue  to 
receive  from  him  all  the  demonstrations  of  love 
she  is  capable  of  enduring,  while  she  would  joy- 
fully contribute  her  share  towards  completing  the 
capacity  of  his.  Then  it  would  constitute  her 
happiness  to  behold  him  happy,  and  t9  enjoy  the 
consciousness  of  having  done  what  she  could  to 
make  him  so.  She  now  rejoices  in  his  abundant 
vitality,  and  is  proud  of  his  superiority.  And 
when  his  manliness,  his  dignity,  and  his  power  are 


222  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

radiated  upon  her  beaming  countenance,  and  re- 
flected thence,  it  is  then  that  her  heart  is  filled  with 
the  utmost  delight  and  satisfaction  of  which  it  is 
susceptible.  Having  become  his  wife,  she  is  so 
entirely  devoted  to  him,  that  she  almost  loses  in 
him  her  own  identity.  She  throws  herself  upon 
his  ample  breast  and  within  his  infolding  arms, 
and  yields  both  her  person  and  her  will  to  his 
control ;  and  she  only  regrets,  when  she  has  given 
up  all,  that  she  has  not  more  to  give. 

'*  You  see  rae,  Lord  Bassanio,  where  I  stand, 
Such  as  I  am  ;  though  for  myself  alone 
I  would  not  be  ambitious  in  my  wish 
To  wish  myself  much  better ;  yet  for  you, 
I  would  be  trebled  twenty  times  myself; 
A  thousand  times  more  fair,  ten  thousand  times 
More  rich : 

That  only  to  stand  high  on  your  account, 
I  might,  in  virtues,  beauties,  livings,  friends, 
Exceed  account ;  but  the  full  sum  of  me 
Is  an  unlessoned  girl,  unschooled,  unpractised ; 
Happy  in  this,  she  is  not  yet  so  old 
But  she  may  learn  ;  and  happier  than  this, 
She  is  not  bred  so  dull  but  she  can  learn ; 
Happiest  of  all,  is,  that  her  gentle  spirit 
Commits  itself  to  yours  to  be  directed, 
4s  from  her  lord,  her  governor,  her  king^. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  223 

Myself  and  what  is  mine,  to  you  and  yours 
Is  now  converted  :  but  now  I  was  the  lord 
Of  this  fair  mansion,  master  of  my  servants. 
Queen  o'er  myself;  and  even  now,  but  now. 
This  house,  these  servants,  and  this  same  myself. 
Are  yours,  my  iwd ;  I  give  ihem  »^ith  this  ring/' 

Merchant  of  Venice,  act  iii.  scene  ii. 


APPENDi:^ 


When  this  little  book  was  ready  for  the  press,  I 
found,  in  one  of  our  public  libraries,  an  ancient 
work,  in  three  volumes,  on  the  same  subject,  with 
a  formidable  Greek  title,  as  follows :  "  Thelyph- 
thora ;  or,  a  Treatise  on  Female  Ruin,  in  its 
Causes,  Effects,  Consequences,  Prevention,  and 
Remedy,"  &c.  Published  by  J.  Dodsley.  Lon- 
don, 1781.  The  work  is  learned  and  heavy,  yet 
it  passed  through  several  editions,  and  had  evidently 
attracted  attention.  The  author's  name  does  not 
appear ;  but  it  is  well  known  to  have  been  written 
by  Rev.  Martin  Madan,  D.D.,  Chaplain  of  the 
Lock  Hospital,  London  ;  to  the  wardens  and  pa- 
trons of  which  the  work  is  dedicated.  I  have  read 
it  with  much  interest,  and  find  it  to  contain  abun- 
dant confirmation  of  the  views  expressed  in  the 
foregoing  pages. 

224 


APPENDIX.  226 

In  the  preface  to  the  second  edition,  the  author 
says,  "  I  now  conclude  this  preface  with  the  con- 
tents of  a  paper  received  from  a  very  respectable 
clergyman,  who  was  candid  enough  to  let,  his  preju- 
dices submit  to  his  judgment,  and  had  honesty 
enough  to  own  it." 

I  transcribe  the  greater  part  of  that  "  paper," 
omitting  such  parts  as  apply  to  England  only,  and 
not  to  America.  ^  >^ 

"As  the  subject  of  a  late  publicatioa  entitled 
Thelyphthora,  or  a  Treatise  on  Female  Ruin,  &c., 
is  much  misunderstood  and  misrepresented  by 
many  people,  who  have,  some  of  them,  never  read 
it  at  all,  and  the  rest  but  partially,  and  not  without 
prejudice,  and  therefore  oppose  it,  'tis  judged  best 
to  send  its  opposers  the  following  questions  for 
them  to  answer.  The  doing  of  this,  'tis  thought, 
will  bring  the  matter  to  a  point,  enter  upon  par- 
ticulars, and  be  a  means  to  discover  where  and 
with  whom  truth  is,  and  where  and  with  whom 
error  is. 

"  1.  Are  the  mischievous,  shocking  crimes  of 
whoredom,  fornication,  and  adultery  got  to  an  enor- 
mous and  increasing  iieight  in  the  land,  and  is  the 
15 


226  APPENDIX. 

laud  defiled  and  deluged  by  them,  or  not?  and  is 
the  frown  of  God  upon  the  land,  or  is  it  not? 

'*  2.  Is  it  needful,  and  is  it  our  bounden  duty,  to 
cry  aloud  against  these  God-provoking  and  nation- 
ruining  sins,  and  to  seek  a  remedy  against  this 
monstrous  evil,  or  is  it  not  ? 

"  3.  Is  there  any  thing  destructively  horrible  in 
the  lives,  and  any  thing  shockingly  dreadful  in  the 
deaths,  of  abandoned  women,  alias  common  prosti- 
tutes, or  is  there  not? 

''  4.  What  number,  how  many  thousands,  are 
there  of  these  miserable  creatures  in  our  land  ?  and 
have  they  any  evil  effect  on  the  male  sex,  or  not? 

^*  5.  Do  our  laws,  as  they  now  stand,  hinder  thi^s 
ruinous  evil,  or  do  they  not?  and  can  they,  or  caa 
they  not? 

''  8.  Is  there  any  remedy  at  all  spoken  of  in 
God's  word  against  the  great  evil  of  lewdness? 
and,  if  there  be,  what  is  that  particular  remedy? 

"'  9.  Does  God,  in  his  word,  order  that  whores, 
adulterers,  and  adulteresses  shall  be  put  to  death,  or 
does  he  not?  (See  Lev.  xx.  10  ;  Deut.  xxii,  21,  22.) 

''12.  Is  there  any  particular  recompense  that 
God  iu  \k\^  word  orclevs  m  m^\^vx\^^  m^u  to  makQ 


APPENDIX.  227 

to  a  virgin  whom  he  has  defiled,  or  is  there  not? 
and,  if  there  be,  what  is  it?  (See  Ex.  xxii.  16,  17  ; 
Deut.  xxii.  28,  29.) 

"  13.  Is  there  any  particular  recompense  that  a 
married  man  is  enjoined  to  make  the  virgin  whom 
he  has  defiled,  or  is  there  not?  If  there  be,  what 
is  it?  Is  the  virgin  in  the  above  case  to  receive  a 
recompense,  and  the  virgin  in  this  case  to  receive 
none,  and  to  be  abandoned?  (See  the  Scriptures 
above  noted.) 

"  14.  Is  our  marriage-ceremony  in  the  church 
so  of  the  essence  of  marriage  as  to  constitute  mar- 
riage ;  and,  therefore,  none  are  married  in  God's 
sight,  but  what  are  joined  together  by  a  priest  with 
that  ceremony? 

"15.  Is  the  marriage  of  the  people  called 
'Quakers 'in  this  land  marriage  in  God's  sight? 
and  also  according  to  our  laws  ? 

''  17.  In  what  way,  or  by  what  form,  were  all 
those  people  of  old  joined  together,  whose  mar- 
riages are  recorded  in  Scripture  history  ? 

''  18.  In  what  way,  or  by  what  form,  were  Chris- 
tians married  for  upwards  of  a  thousand  years 
immediately  after  the  birth  of  Christ? 


228  APPENDIX. 

"19.  Was  our  church  marriage-ceremoDy  the 
consequence  of  Pope  Innocent  III.  putting  mar- 
riage, as  a  sacrament,  into  the  hands  of  popish 
priests,  or  was  it  not? 

"20.  What  reason  can  be  assignea  for  God's 
permitting  so  many  people,  and  particularly  some 
of  his  distinguished  saints  of  old,  to  live  allowedly 
in  the  practice  of  polygamy,  and  to  die  without 
ever  reproving  them,  calling  them  to  repentance, 
and  without  their  ever  expressing  any  sorrow  for 
it,  and  showing  any  evidences  at  all  of  their  re- 
pentance? and  if  God*s  Avord  be  the  rule  of  our 
conduct,  and  if  the  example  of  these  saints  be 
written  for  our  learning,  what  are  we  to  learn  from 
them  respecting  polygamy  ? 

"21.  If  these  saints  of  old  lived  and  died  in  sin^ 
by  living  and  dying  in  the  allowed  practice  of 
polygamy,  what  is  the  name  of  the  sin  ?  By  what 
term  is  it  to  be  distinguished  ?  Was  it  adultery  ? 
or  Avhoredom?  or  fornication?  Was  their  com- 
merce licit,  or  illicit?  What  commandment  did 
they  sin  against?  Were  they  adulterers,  whore- 
mongers, or  fornicators?  What  does  the  Scripture 
history  of  the  lives  and  deaths  of  these  saints  teach 
us  to  call  their  practice  ? 


APPENDIX,  229 

**  22.  Were  Hannah  and  Rachel  and  (after 
Uriah's  death)  Bathsheba  whores  or  adulteresses  ; 
or  were  they  lawful  and  honored  wives  ?  How  are 
they  spoken  of,  and  how  were  they  treated,  as  the 
Scripture  history  informs  us? 

"23.  Were  Joseph,  Samuel,  and  Solomon  bas- 
tards, or  honorable  and  legitimate  sons?  In  what 
character  were  they  spoken  of  and  treated  ?  Did 
God  show  favor  to  them,  or  dislike  of  them  ? 

"24.  Were  not  Hannah,  Rachel,  and  Bathsheba 
whores  or  adultresses ;  and  Joseph,  Samuel,  and 
Solomon  bastards,  according  to  the  laws  of  our 
land? 

"26.  In  what  way  can  a  stop  be  put  to  these 
following  ruinous,  detestable,  horrible,  and  nation- 
al evils ;  namely,  brothel-keeping ;  murdering  of 
infants  by  seduced  women  ;  pregnant  virgins  com- 
mitting of  suicides ;  the  venereal  disease ;  seduc* 
tion  ;  prostitution  ;  whoredom  ;  adultery  ;  and  all 
the  deplorable  evils  accompanying  and  following 
the  mischievous  sins  of  lewdness  in  this  land?  If 
God's  law  respecting  the  commerce  of  the  sexes 
was  observed,  and  if  the  laws  of  our  land  were  to 
enforce  that,  might  we  not  expect  his  blessing  on 


230  APPENDIX. 

such  means  used  to  accomplish  so  needed  and  so 
desirable  an  end  ? 

"  After  these  questions  are  answered,  in  a  phiin, 
fair,  and  scriptural  manner,  and  the  answers  are 
honest,  free  from  paltry  subterfuge  and  equivoca- 
tion, we  shall  find  out  w^hether  the  scheme  in  that 
book  has  a  good  or  a  bad  tendency  ;  whether  to  be 
reprobated  or  received  ;  and  whether  the  friends 
and  abettors  of  it  are  friends  or  foes  to  their  coun- 
try, the  cause  of  God,  the  temporal,  spiritual,  and 
eternal  welfare  of  their  fellow-creatures  ?  " 

Another  learned  work,  in  two  octavo  volumes, 
bearing  directly  upon  ray  subject,  has  just  now 
(1869)  been  issued  from  the  London  press,  enti- 
tled "  History  of  European  Morals,  from  Augus- 
tus to  Charlemagne.    By  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  M.  A.'* 

The  preceding  pages  of  ''  The  History  and  Phi- 
losophy of  Marriage "  had  all  been  stereotyped 
before  these  elegant  volumes  came  to  hand  ;  and 
it  is  only  in  this  appendix,  and  at  this  last  moment, 
that  I  can  pass  them  under  a  brief  review.  Hav- 
ing spent  fifteen  years  in  the  same  field  of  study, 
with  a  similar  object  in  view,  and  being  well 
aware  of  the  interest  and  importance  of  this  de- 


APPENDIX,  231 

partmeut  ot  history,  I  scarcely  need  to  say  I  have 
read  Mr.  Lecky's  work  Avith  a  keen  appreciation 
of  its  worth,  which  has  increased  with  each  suc- 
cessive page.  I  cannot  express  my  sincere  admi- 
ration of  the  rare  skill  and  fidelity  with  which  the 
author  has  elaborated  his  theories,  grouped  his 
facts,  and  collated  his  authorities ;  investing  the 
usually  dry  and  abstruse  study  of  moral  philoso^ 
phy  with  so  much  of  both  pleasure  and  profit  as 
to  unite  the  amusement  of  romance  to  the  instruc- 
tion of  authentic  records.  The  plan  of  my  own 
essay,  to  which  this  notice  is  appended,  being 
much  less  voluminous,  and  less  pretentious,  I 
could  not  introduce  so  many  citations  as  I  often 
wished,  —  an  inability  which  I  need  not  now  re- 
gret, since  this  work  has  appeared,  to  which  I 
can  and  do  hereby  refer.  And  yet  these  volumes 
do  not  seem  to  be  altogether  complete.  They  are 
as  remarkable  for  what  they  omit  as  for  what  they 
contain,  and  suggest  the  question,  Whether  the  dis- 
tinguished author  be  not  too  good  a  philosopher  to 
be,  at  the  same  time,  a  very  good  historian? 
whether  his  fondness  for  speculation  has  not  too 
often    diverted    his    attention    from    a    cateororical 


232  APPENDIX, 

description  of  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  nu- 
merous tribes,  and  the  long  periods  of  time  em- 
braced Avithin  the  scope  of  his  history?  His 
profound  disquisitions  are  models  of  excellence,  as 
such,  and  are  copiously  illustrated  by  incontestable 
facts  and  authorities ;  but  he  does  not  give  us 
enough  such  disquisitions  to  constitute  together  the 
history  of  the  morals  of  the  given  period.  His 
work  consists  rather  of  some  speculations  on  Eu- 
ropean  morals  than  a  history  of  them  during  seven 
centuries.  He  gives  us  admirable  monographs  on 
the  different  schools  of  moral  philosophy,  on  the 
Pagan  persecutions,  on  stoicism,  on  neo-Platonism, 
on  miracles,  on  chastity,  on  asceticism,  on  mona- 
chism,  on  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  on  abortion,  on 
infanticide,  and  exposure  of  children,  &c.,  which  are 
all  very  good  ;  but  he  gives  us  no  similar  sketches 
of  the  history  of  marriage,  of  divorce,  of  adul- 
tery, of  prostitution,  of  monogamy,  of  polygamy, 
of  Paganism,  of  Gnosticism,  of  Catholicism,  of 
Mohammedanism,  &c.,  each  one  of  which  forms 
an  essential  part  of  the  history  of  European  mor- 
als. His  plan  of  philosophical  disquisitions,  also, 
interrupts  and  confounds  all  chronological  order, 


APPENDIX.  233 

and  leaves  no  room  for  those  biographical  sketches 
of  distinguished  men,  whose  private  lives  give 
moral  tone  and  character  to  the  times  in  which 
they  live,  which  we  always  look  for  in  a  work 
of  history,  and  especially  in  a  history  of  mor- 
als, and  the  want  of  which,  in  these  volumes^ 
will  be  esteemed,  by  some  at  least,  as  a  serious 
defect. 

It  happens,  curiously  enough,  that  what  Mr. 
Lecky  has  omitted,  I  have,  in  "  The  History  and 
Philosophy  of  Marriage,'*  in  part  supplied,  per- 
haps in  a  less  satisfactory  manner,  but  with  no  less 
sincere  an  appreciation  of  the  truth,  which  it  be- 
longs to  history  to  disentangle  and  unfold. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  "  The  History  of  European 
Morals,"  the  author  seems  to  me  to  degrade  the 
passion  of  love  and  the  institution  of  marriage 
below  their  just  rank  in  the  scale  of  morals,  and 
to  attribute  to  a  life  of  continence  a  higher  sanc- 
tity than  the  facts  which  he  cites  can  warrant. 
(I  quote  from  p.  107,  et  seq.^  vol.  i.) 

"We  have,"  says  he,  "an  innate,  intuitive,  in- 
stinctive perception,  that  there  is  something  degrad- 
ing in  the  sensual  part  of  our  nature  ;  something  to 


234  APPENDIX. 

which  a  feeling  of  shame  is  naturally  attached  ; 
something  that  jars  with  our  conception  of  perfect 
purity ;  something  we  could  not  with  any  propri- 
ety ascribe  to  an  all-holy  Being."  "It  is  this 
feeling,  or  instinct,  which  produces  that  sense  of 
the  sanctity  of  perfect  continence,  which  the  Cath- 
olic Church  has  so  warmly  encouraged,  but  which 
may  be  traced  through  the  most  distant  ages  and 
the  most  various  creeds.  Wq  find  it  among  the 
Nazarenes  and  the  Essenes  of  Judasa,  among  the 
priests  of  Egypt  and  India,  in  the  monasteries  of 
Tartary,  and  ...  in  the  mythologies  of  Asia." 
*'  In  the  midst  of  the  sensuality  of  ancient  Greece, 
chastity  was  the  pre-eminent  attribute  ascribed  to 
Athene  and  Artemis.  '  Chaste  daughter  of  Zeus,' 
prayed  the  suppliants  in  ^schylus,  '  thou  whose 
calm  eye  is  never  troubled,  look  down  upon  us  ! 
Virgin,  defend  the  virgins  !  *  "  ''  Celibacy  was  an 
essential  condition  in  a  few  orders  of  priests,  and 
in  several  orders'  of  priestesses."  "  Strabo  men- 
tions the  existence  in  Thrace  of  societies  of  men 
aspiring  to  perfection  by  celibacy  and  austere 
lives."  At  Rome,  .  .  .  "  we  find  the  traces  of  this 
higher  ideal  in  the  intense  sanctity  attributed  to 
the  vestal  virgins,  ...  in  the  legend  of  Claudia, 
...  in  the  prophetic  gift  so  often  attributed  to 
virgins,  in  the  law  which  sheltered  them  from  an 
execution,  and  in  the  language  of  Statins,  who  de- 
scribed marriage  itself  as  a  fault.  In  Christianity, 
scarcely  any  other  single  circumstance  has  contrib- 
uted so  much  to  the  attraction  of  the  faith  as  the 
ascription  of  virginity  to  the  female  ideal." 

Now,  all  this,  and  a  deal  more,  which  I  need 


APPENDIX.  235 

not  quote,  ot  the  same  sort,  only  proves,  that,  in 
respect  of  chastity,  they  frequently  adore  it  most 
who  lack  it  most ;  and,  in  respect  of  love  and  mar- 
riage, that  human  sentiments  are  so  influenced  by 
fashionable  vice,  that  we  are  often  ashamed  of 
what  we  ought  to  be  proud,  and  proud  of  what  we 
ought  to  be  ashamed.  We  possess  such  contradic- 
tory sentiments  and  such  conflicting  passions,  that 
we  need  a  divine  law  to  teach  us  what  is  right  and 
wliat  is  wrong,  and  what  is  pure  and  what  is  im- 
pure. And  divine  law  has  taught  us  that  marriage 
is  honorable  ;  that  the  normal  exercise  of  love  is 
the  noblest  and  purest  passion  of  the  soul ;  and 
•that  the  normal  gratification  of  the  reproductive 
instinct  is  the  highest  function  of  the  body :  and 
those  only  are  ashamed  of  it  who  either  indulge  it 
abnormally  and  sinfully,  or  who  desire  to.  Then, 
by  the  law  of  association,  this  guilty  impurity  im- 
parts its  own  defilement  to  every  act  and  thought 
of  love,  until  the  passion  itself  seems,  as  it  is  to 
them,  degrading  and  impure.  Thus  this  notion 
arises,  not  from  its  proper  use,  but  only  from  its 
abuse  ;  and  the  law  of  increase  ever  remains  the 
primal  law  of  Nature  :   nor  is  it  true,  as  he  as- 


286  APPENDIX. 

serts,  that  we  cannot,  with  any  propriety,  ascribe 
it  to  an  "  all*holy  Being."  Our  first  parents  were 
*'  all-holy ; "  yet  this  passion  can  be  ascribed  to 
them  with  the  utmost  propriety ;  for  "  God  said 
unto  them,  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  replenish 
the  earth*"     "  And  they  were  not  ashamed." 

"  Nor  turnedj  I  ween, 
Adam  from  his  fair  spouse ;  nor  Eve  the  rites 
Mysterious  of  connubial  love  refused: 
Whatever  hypocrites  austerely  talk 
Of  purity  and  place  and  innocence  ; 
Defaming  as  impure  what  God  declares 
Pure,  and  commands  to  some,  leaves  free  to  all." 

But  our  author's  own  pages  furnish  further  refu- 
tation of  his  theory,  in  his  sketch  of  the  history  of 
asceticism,  which  at  the  same  time  affords  so 
full  and  so  apt  a  confirmation  of  my  assertions  in 
respect  of  the  evil  influences  of  Gnosticism  and 
PlatOnism  upon  mediaeval  Christianity  and  the 
European  marriage-system,  that  I  quote  the  fol- 
lowing from  his  4th  and  5th  chapters,  vol.  ii.  pp. 
108,  119,  138,  340,  363,  &c. :  — 

"  The  central  conceptions  of  the  monastic  system 
are  the  meritoriousness  of  complete  abstinence  from 


APPENDIX,  237 

all  sexual  intercourse,  and  of  complete  reuunciation 
of  the  world.  The  first  of  these  notions  appeared 
in  the  very  earliest  period,  in  the  respect  attached 
to  the  condition  of  virginity,  which  was  always 
regarded  as  sacred,  and  especially  esteemed  in  the 
clergy,  though  for  a  long  time  it  was  not  imposed 
as  an  obligation."  ''  On  the  outskirts  of  the 
Church,  the  many  sects  of  Gnostics  and  Manicheans 
all  held,  under  different  forms,  the  essential  evil  of 
matter."  *'  The  object  of  the  ascetic  was  to  attract 
men  to  a  life  of  virginity  ;  and,  as  a  necessary  conse- 
quence, marriage  was  treated  as  an  inferior  state." 
''  'To  cut  down  by  the  axe  of  virginity  the  wood 
of  marriage,'  was,  in  the  energetic  language  of  St. 
Jerome,  the  end  of  the  saint."  "  Whenever  any 
strong  religious  fervour  fell  upon  a  husband  or  a 
wife,  its  first  effect  was  to  make  a  happy  union  im- 
possible. The  more  religious  partner  immediately 
desired  to  live  a  life  of  solitary  asceticism."  *'  St. 
Nilus,  when  he  had  already  two  children,  was 
seized  with  a  longing  for  the  prevailing  asceticism  ; 
and  his  wife  was  persuaded,  after  many  tears,  to 
consent  to  their  separation.  St.  Ammon,  on  the 
night  of  his  marriage,  proceeded  to  greet  his  bride 
with  an  harangue  upon  the  evils  of  the  married 
state,  and  they  agreed  at  once  to  separate.  St. 
Melania  labored  long  and  earnestly  to  induce  her 
husband  to  allow  her  to  desert  his  bed."  "  St. 
Abraham  ran  away  from  his  wife  on  the  night  of 
his  marriage."  ''  Woman  was  represented  as  the 
door  of  hell,  as  the  mother  of  all  human  ills.  She 
should  be  ashamed  at  the  very  thought  that  she  is 
a  woman.  She  should  live  in  continual  penance, 
on  account  of  the  curses  she  has  brought  upon  the 


238  APPENDIX. 

world.  She  should  be  ashamed  of  her  dress  ;  for 
it  is  the  memorial  of  her  fall.  She  should  be  espe- 
cially ashamed  of  lier  beauty  ;  for  it  is  the  most 
potent  instrument  of  the  demon."  ''To  break  by 
his  ingratitude  the  heart  of  the  mother  who  had 
borne  him,  to  persuade  the  wife  wlio  adored  him 
that  it  was  her  duty  to  separate  from  him  forever, 
to  abandon  his  children,  was  regarded  by  the  her- 
mit as  the  most  acceptable  offering  he  could  make 
to  his  God."  "  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  who  had  been 
passionately  loved  by  his  parents,  began  his  saintly 
career  by  breaking  the  heart  of  his  father,  who  died 
of  grief  at  his  flight  to  the  desert.  His  mother, 
twenty-seven  years  after,  when  she  heard,  for  the 
first  time,  where  he  was,  hastened  to  visit  him. 
But  all  her  labor  was  in  vain  :  no  woman  was  ad- 
mitted within  the  precincts  of  his  dwelling;  and  he 
refused  to  permit  her  even  to  look  upon  his  face." 
''  Three  days  and  three  nights  she  wept  and  en- 
treated in  vain ;  and  exhausted  with  grief,  age, 
and  privation,  she  sank  feebly  to  the  ground,  and 
breathed  her  last  before  his  door.  Then,  for  the 
first  time,  the  saint,  accompanied  by  his  followers, 
came  out.  He  shed  some  pious  tears  over  the 
corpse  of  his  murdered  mother,  and  offered  up  a 
prayer,  consigning  her  soul  to  heaven.  Then, 
amid  the  admiring  murmurs  of  his  disciples,  the 
saintly  matricide  returned  to  his  devotions."  ""He 
had  bound  a  rope  around  him,  so  that  it  had  be- 
come embedded  in  his  flesh,  which  putrified  around 
it.  A  horrible  stench  exhaled  from  his  body,  and 
worms  dropped  from  him  whenever  he  moved.  He 
built  successively  three  pillars,  the  last  being  sixty 
feet  high,  and  scarcely  three  feet  in  circumference  ; 


APPENDIX,  239 

and  on  this  pillar  he  lived  during  thirty  years,  ex- 
posed to  every  change  of  climate,  ceaselessly  and 
rapidly  bending  his  body  in  prayer  almost  to  the 
level  of  his  feet.  For  one  year,  he  stood  upon  one 
leg,  the  other  being  covered  with  hideous  ulcers  ; 
while  his  biographer  was  commissioned  to  stand 
by  his  side,  and  pick  up  the  worms  that  fell  from 
his  body,  and  replace  them  in  the  sores,  the  saint 
saying  to  the  worm,  '  Eat  what  God  has  given 
you.'  "  "  For  six  months,  St.  Macarius  of  Alex- 
andria slept  in  a  marsh,  and  exposed  his  body, 
naked,  to  the  stings  of  venomous  flies.  He  was 
accustomed  to  carry  about  with  him  eighty  pounds 
of  iron.  His  disciple,  St.  Eusebius,  carried  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds  of  iron,  and  lived  for  three 
years  in  a  dried-up  well.  St.  Sabinus  would  only 
eat  corn  that  had  become  rotten  by  remaining  for 
a  month  in  water."  "A  man  named  Mutius,  ac- 
companied by  his  only  child,  a  little  boy  of  eight 
years  old,  once  abandoned  his  possessions,  and  de- 
manded admission  into  a  monastery.  The  monks 
received  him  ;  but  they  proceeded  to  discipline  his 
heart.  His  little  child  was  clothed  in  rags,  beaten, 
spurned,  and  ill  treated.  Day  after  day,  the  father 
was  compelled  to  look  upon  his  boy  wasting  away 
in  sorrow,  his  once  happy  countenance  forever 
stained  with  tears,  distorted  by  sobs  of  anguish. 
But  yet,  says  the  admiring  biographer,  such  was 
his  love  for  Christ,  and  for  the  virtue  of  obedience, 
that  the  father's  heart  was  rigid  and  unmoved." 

''  But  most  terrible  of  all  were  the  struggles  of 
young  and  ardent  men,  through  whose  veins  the 
hot  blood  of  passion  continually  flowed,  physically 
jucapablo  of  a  11 /e  of  celibacy,  who  were  borne  ou 


240  APPENDIX, 

the  wave  of  enthusiasm  to  the  desert  life.  In  the 
arms  of  Syrian  or  African  brides,  whose  soft  eyes 
answered  love  with  love,  they  might  have  sunk  to 
rest ;  but  in  the  lonely  desert  no  peace  could  ever 
visit  their  souls.  Multiplying,  with  frantic  energy, 
the  macerations  of  the  body,  beating  their  breasts 
with  anguish,  the  tears  forever  streaming  from  their 
eyes,  imagining  themselves  continually  haunted  by 
forms  of  deadly  beauty,  their  struggles  not  un- 
frequently  ended  in  insanity  and  in  suicide.  When 
St.  Pachomius  and  St.  Paltemon  were  once  con- 
versing together  in  the  desert,  a  young  monk 
rushed  into  their  presence  in  a  distracted  manner, 
and,  convulsed  with  sobs,  poured  out  his  tale  of 
sorrows.  A  woman  had  entered  his  cell,  and  had 
seduced  him,  and  then  vanished,  leaving  him  half 
dead  upon  the  ground  ;  then,  with  a  wild  shriek, 
the  monk  broke  away,  rushed  across  the  desert  till 
he  arrived  at  the  next  vilhige  ;  and  there,  leaping 
into  the  open  furnace  of  the  public  baths,  he  per- 
ished in  the  flames." 

"In  the  time  of  St.  Cyprian,  before  the  Decian 
persecution,  it  had  been  common  to  find  clergy  pro- 
fessing celibacy,  but  keeping,  under  various  pre- 
texts, their  mistresses  in  their  houses  ;  and,  after 
Constantine,  the  complaints  on  this  subject  became 
loud  and  general.  Virgins  and  monks  often  lived 
together  in  the  same  house  ;  and  with  a  curious 
audacity  of  hypocrisy,  which  is  very  frequently 
noticed,  they  professed  to  have  so  overcome  the 
passions  of  their  nature,  that  they  shared  in  chas- 
tity the  same  bed."  ''  Noble  ladies,  pretending  a 
desire  to  live  a  life  of  continence,  abandoned  their 
husbands,  to  live  with  low-born  lovers.     Palestine, 


APPENDIX.  241 

wliicli  soon  became  the  centre  of  pilgrimages,  had 
become,  in  the  time  of  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  a 
hot-bed  of  debauchery."  "  There  were  few  towns 
in  Central  Europe,  on  the  way  to  Rome,  in  the 
eighth  century,  where  English  ladies  who  started 
as  pilgrims  were  not  living  in  open  prostitution." 

f  The  last  chapter  of  this  "  History  of  European 
Morals"  also  furnishes  a  complete  confirmation  of 
my  own  assertion  {ante  p.  60),  that  the  barbarian 
polygamists  from  Asia,  who  successively  invaded 
Europe,  were  possessed  of  a  higher  social  purity 
than  the  monogamous  Homans,  or  than  they 
themselves  possessed  after  they  had  adopted  the 
European  system. 

"  In  respect  of  this  virtue  [^chastity],  the  various 
tribes  of  barbarians,  however  violent  and  lawless, 
were  far  superior  to  the  more  civilised  community." 
"  The  moral  purity  of  the  barbarians  was  of  a  kind 
altogether  different  from  that  which  the  ascetic 
movement  inculcated.  It  was  concentrated  exclu- 
sively upon  marriage.  It  showed  itself  in  a  noble 
conjugal  fidelity ;  but  it  was  little  fitted  for  a  life 
of  celibacy."  ''  The  practice  of  polygamy  among 
the  barbarian  kings  was  also,  for  some  centuries, 
unchecked,  or,  at  least,  unsuppressed,  by  Chris- 
tianity. The  kings  Caribert  and  Chilperic  had 
both  many  wives  at  the  same  time.  Clothaire 
married  the  sister  of  his  first  wife  during  the  life- 
time of  the  latter;   who,  on  the  king  announcing 


242  APPENDIX, 

his  intention  to  lier,  is  reported  to  have  said,  'Let 
my  lord  do  what  seemeth  good  in  liis  sight ;  only 
let  thy  servant  live  in  thy  favour.'  St.  Cokimbanus 
was  expelled  from  Gaul  chiefly  on  account  of  his 
denunciations  of  the  polygamy  of  King  Thierry. 
Dagobert  had  three  wives,  as  well  as  a  multitude 
of  concubines.  Charlemagne  himself  had,  at  the 
same  time,  two  wives  ;  and  ho  indulged  largely  in 
concubines.  After  this  period,  examples  of  this 
nature  became  rare."  "  But,  notwithstanding  these 
startling  facts,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  gen- 
eral purity  of  the  barbarians  was,  from  the  first, 
superior  to  that  of  the  later  Romans." 

Perhaps  our  learned  author  calls  these  facts 
"  startling,"  because  they  do  not  accord  with  mod- 
ern notions  of  the  superior  purity  of  monogamy 
which  he  seems  to  entertain,  in  common  with  other 
Europeans,  in  spite  of  a  thousand  other  "facts" 
to  the  contrary  which  his  own  volumes  contain. 
For  example,  in  his  sketch  of  the  morals  of  ancient 
Greece,  the  "facts"  seem  "perplexing"  to  him. 
la  the  heroic  age,  when  polygamy  was  practised, 
the  noblest  types  of  female  virtue  and  excellence 
abounded ;  but  in  the  later  period,  when  the 
"higher  state"  of  monogamy  prevailed,  female 
virtue  experienced  a  sudden  eclipse,  so  dark  and 
tptal,  ancl  so  incompatible  with  his  theory  of  the 


APPENDIX.  243 

superior  purity  of  monogamy,  that  he  expresses 
the  utmost  shame  and  reluctance  in  being  obliged 
to  record  the  evidences  of  its  gro3S  depravity. 
Hear  what  he  says,  and  pardon  his  errors  in 
theory,  for  they  are  those  of  his  age  ;  admire  his 
candor,  and  fidelity  to  facts,  for  they  are  the  high- 
est qualifications  of  an  historian. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable,  and,  to  some 
writers,  one  of  the  most  perplexing):  facts  in  the 
moral  history  of  Greece,  that,  in  the  former  and 
ruder  period,  women  had  undoubtedly  the  highest 
place,  and  their  type  exhibited  the  highest  perfec- 
tion. Moral  ideas,  in  a  thousand  forms,  have 
been  sublimated,  enlarged,  and  changed  by  advan- 
cing civilisation  ;  but  it  may  be  fearlessly  asserted, 
that  the  types  of  female  excellence  which  are  con- 
tained in  the  Greek  poems,  while  they  are  among 
the  earliest,  are  also  among  the  most  perfect,  in  the 
literature  of  mankind.  The  conjugal  tenderness 
of  Hector  and  Andromache  ;  the  unwearied  fidelity 
of  Penelope,  awaiting  through  the  long,  revolving 
years  the  return  of  her  storm-tossed  husband  ;  the 
heroic  love  of  Alcestis,  voluntarily  dying,  that  her 
husband  might  live;  the  filial  piety  of  Antigone  ; 
the  majestic  grandeur  of  the  death  of  Polyxena  ;  the 
more  saintly  resignation  of  Iphigeuia,  excusing 
with  her  last  breath  the  father  who  had  condemned 
her ;  the  joyous,  modest,  and  loving  Nausicaa, 
whose  figure  shines  like  a  perfect  idyll  among  the 
tragedies  of  the  Odyssey,  —  all  these  are  pictures 


244  APPENDIX. 

of  perennial  beauty  which  Rome  and  Christendom, 
chivahy  and  modern  civilisation,  have  neither 
eclipsed  nor  transcended.  Virgin  modesty  and 
conjugal  fidelity,  the  graces  as  well  as  the  virtues 
of  the  most  perfect  womanhood,  have  never  been 
more  exquisitely  pourtrayed." 

Such  was  the  golden  age  of  polygamy.  ISow 
look  on  that  picture,  and  then  on  this,  both  drawn 
by  the  same  hand,  and  that  the  hand  of  a  mono- 
gamist. 

"  In  the  historical  [or  monogamous]  age  of  Greece, 
the  legal  position  of  women  had,  in  some  measure, 
slightly  improved  ;  but  their  moral  .condition  had 
undergone  a  marked  deterioration.  The  foremost 
and  most  dazzling  type  of  Ionic  womanhood  was 
the  courtesan  ;  and  among  the  males,  at  least,  the 
empire  of  passion  was  almost  unrestricted.  The 
peculiarity  of  Greek  sensuality  is,  that  it  grew  up, 
for  the  most  part,  uncensured,  and,  indeed,  even 
encouraged,  under  the  eyes  of  some  of  the  most 
illustrious  of  moralists.  If  we  can  imagine  Ninon 
de  I'Enclos,  at  a  time  when  the  rank  and  splendour 
of  Parisian  society  thronged  her  drawing-rooms, 
reckoniug  a  Bossuet  or  a  Fenelon  among  her  fol- 
lowers ;  if  we  can  imagine  these  prelates  publicly 
advising  her  about  her  profession,  and  the  means 
of  attaching  the  affections  of  her  lovers,  —  we  shall 
have  conceived  a  relation  like  that  which  existed 
between  Socrates  and  the  courtesan  Theodota.'*' 
''  In  the  Greek  civilisation,  legislators  and  moral- 
ists recognised  two  distinct  orders  of  womanhood, 


APPEKDTX,  245 

—  the  wife,  whose  first  duty  was  fidelity  to  her  hus- 
band, and  the  hetsera,  the  mistress,  who  subsisted 
by  her  fugitive  attachments.  The  wives  lived  in 
almost  absolute  seclusion.  They  were  usually 
married  when  very  young.  The  mare  wealthy 
seldom  went  abroad,  and  never,  except  when  ac- 
companied by  a  female  slave  ;  never  attended  the 
public  spectacles  ;  received  no  male  visitors,  except 
in  the  presence  of  their  husbands  ;  and  had  not 
even  a  scat  at  their  own  tables  when  male  guests 
were  there.  Thucydides  doubtless  expressed  the 
prevailing  sentiment  of  his  countrymen  when  he 
said  that  the  highest  merit  of  woman  is  not  to  be 
spoken  of  either  for  good  or  for  evil."  "  The 
names  of  virtuous  women  scarcely  appear  in  Greek 
history."  "A  few  instances  of  conjugal  and  filial 
affection  have  been  recorded  ;  but,  in  general,  the 
only  women  who  attracted  the  notice  of  the  people 
were  the  hetaerse,  or  courtesans."  ''  The  voluptu* 
ous  worship  of  Aphrodite  gave  a  kind  of  reli- 
gious sanction  to  their  profession.  Courtesans 
were  the  priestesses  in  her  temples."  "  The  courte- 
san was  the  queen  of  beauty.  She  was  the  model 
of  the  statues  of  Aphrodite,  that  commanded  the 
admiration  of  Greece.  Praxiteles  was  accustomed 
to  reproduce  the  form  of  Phyrne  ;  and  her  statue, 
carved  in  gold,  stood  in  the  temple  of  Apollo." 
"  Apelles  was  at  once  the  painter  and  lover  of 
Lais."  "  The  courtesan  was  the  one  free  woman 
of  Athens  ;  -and  she  often  availed  herself  of  her 
freedom  to  acquire  a  degree  of  knowledge  which 
enabled  her  to  add  to  her  other  charms  an  intense 
intellectual  fascination."  .  .  .  "My task  in  describ- 
ing this  aspect  of  Greek  life  has  been  an  eminently 


^46  APPENDIX, 

unpleasing  one  ;  and  I  should  certainly  not  have 
entered  upon  even  the  baldest  and  most  guarded 
disquisition  on  a  subject  so  difficult,  painful,  and 
delicate,  had  it  not  been  absolutely  indispensable  to 
a  history  of  morals.  AVhat  I  have  written  will 
sufficiently  explain  why  Greece,  which  was  fertile, 
probably,  beyond  all  other  lands,  in  great  men,  was 
so  remarkably  barren  of  great  women.'*  ''  The  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  that  it  is  criminal  to  gratify  a  power* 
ful  and  a  transient  physical  appetite,  except  under 
the  condition  of  a  lifelong  contract,  was  altogether 
unknown."  *'  An  aversion  to  marriage  became 
very  general,  and  illicit  connections  were  formed 
with  the  most  perfect  frankness  and  publicity." 

In  support  of  his  opinion,  that  monogamy  is 
a  higher  state  of  morals  than  polygamy,  Mr. 
Lecky,  in  the  final  chapter,  brings  forward  four 
arguments,  which  merit  a  fair  statement. 

''  We  may  regard  monogamy,"  he  says,  *'  either 
in  the  light  of  our  intuitive  moral  sentiment  on  the 
subject  of  chastity,  or  in  the  light  of  the  interests 
of  society.  By  the  first,  I  understand  that  univer- 
sal perception  or  conviction  which  I  believe  to  be 
an  ultimate  fact  in  human  nature,  that  the  sensual 
side  of  our  being  is  the  lower  side,  and  some  degree 
of  shame  may  appropriately  be  attached  to  it.  In  its 
Oriental  or  polygamous  stage,  marriage  is  regarded 
almost  exclusively  in  its  sensual  aspect,  as  a  grati- 
fication of  the  animal  passions  ;  while  in  European 
marriages  ,  .  .  the   lower  element  has   compara- 


APPENDIX.  247 

tively  little  promineace.  In  this  respect,  it  may 
be  intelli<5ibly  said  that  monogamy  is  a  higher  state 
than  polygamy.  The  utilitarian  arguments  are 
also  extremely  powerful,  and  may  be  summed  up 
in  three  sentences.  Nature,  by  making  the  num- 
ber of  males  and  females  nearly  equal,  indicates  it 
as  natural.  In  no  other  form  of  marriage  can  the 
government  of  the  family  be  so  happily  sustained  ; 
and  in  no  other  does  woman  assume  the  position 
of  the  equal  of  man.'* 

I  have  already  anticipated  and  considered  the  last 
three  arguments  in  "  The  History  and  Philosophy 
of  Marriage,'*  and  I  have  also  incidentally  touched 
upon  the  first  in  my  examination  of  our  author's 
views  of  chastity  and  continence  ;  but,  as  he  seems 
to  place  great  stress  upon  this  notion,  and  repeats 
it  again  and  again,  I  will  venture  to  offer  another 
word  in  reply.  If  an  enforced  monogamy  be  more 
chaste  than  polygamy,  then,  for  a  s*tronger  reason, 
an  enforced  celibacy  is  more  chaste  than  monog- 
amy, —  a  conclusion  of  which  his  own  work 
demonstrates  the  absurdity,  as  does  every  other 
respectable  history  of  real  life  in  any  age  or  coun- 
try. I  yield  to  no  one  in  a  most  profound  respect 
for  chastity,  and  in  a  most  sincere  desire  to  pro- 
mote it ;  but  by  as  much  as  I  venerate  true  chas- 


248  APPENDIX. 

tity  by  so  much  do  I  detest  its  counterfeit.  I  have 
demonstrated  that  our  present  system  of  monogamy 
is  a  counterfeit,  stimulating  the  most  loathsome 
,  vices  of  prostitution  and  hypocrisy ;  and  I  assert 
^that  the  only  effectual  manner  in  which  social 
j  purity  and  honesty  can  be  maintained  is  by  pro- 
moting the  utmost  freedom  to  marry,  and  the  ut- 
most purity  of  marriage.  All  men  are  not  alike. 
Let  there  be  no  Procustean  marriage-bed.  If 
there  are  those  who  are  able  and  Avilling,  for  the 
love  of  God  and  the  better  service  of  the  Church, 
to  devote  themselves  to  a  voluntary  life  of  honest 
celibacy,  we  respect  and  venerate  them  for  it.  If 
there  are  others  who  will  each  honestly  and  cheer- 
fully content  himself  with  one  wife,  "  and,  forsak- 
ing all  others,  keep  himself  only  unto  her  so  long 
as  they  both  shall  live,"  at  the  same  time  avoiding 
all  matrimonial  abuse  and  excess,  we  will  respect 
them  but  little  less  than  the  former  ;  but,  again,  if 
there  are  others,  whose  measure  of  vitality  is  so 
large  that  they  cannot  and  will  not  be  restricted 
to  a  single  marriage,  or  whose  wives  arc  confirmed 
invalids,  and  hopelessly  barren  and  incapable  of 
matrimonial  duty,  —  I  would  not  oblige  these  men 


APPENDIX,  240 

either  to  murder  or  to  divorce  their  present  wives, 
or  to  live  a  life  of  matrimonial  brutality,  or  of  des- 
perate licentiousness ;  but  I  would  grant  them  the 
right  to  marry  again,  as  the  best  possible  alternative. 
And  I  insist  that  the  man  who  should  thus  openly 
maintain  his  natural  rights,  and  live  an  honest 
life,  would  still  be  worthy  of  public  confidence  and 
respect.  Such  men,  by  taking  additional  wives, 
would  become  the  most  efficient  public  benefactors, 
by  providing  for  the  otherwise  homeless  and  aban- 
doned Avomen,  and  by  furnishing  the  only  possible 
preventive  of  the  great  social  evil.  The  time  has 
gone  by  for  accepting  the  mere  outward  profession 
of  sanctity  :  we  require  substantial  evidences  of  its 
possession  before  we  consent  to  accord  to  its  claim- 
ants their  proper  honors.  No  one  can  now  escape 
publicity.  The  almost  omnipresent  reporters  of 
the  press  invade  our  sanctuaries  and  our  bed- 
chambers ;  and  a  bird  of  the  air  shall  carry  the 
matter.  Men  and  women  need  affect  no  purity  or 
sanctity  which  they  do  not  possess.  The  fiat  has 
gone  forth,  "Let  there  be  light;"  and,  in  our 
present  situation,  what  we  most  desire  is  more 
light.     And  Mr._Lecky  himself,  at  last,  virtually 


250  APPENDIX. 

admits,  that,  while  monogamy  should  be  the  ideal 
type  of  the  matrimonial  relation,  its  universal, 
honest  observance  is  an  impossibility.  But,  in- 
stead of  recommending  the  pure  and  divinely-sanc- 
tioned freedom  of  polygamy,  he  prefers  to  pander 
to  the  licentious  tendencies  of  a  luxurious  age,  by 
suggesting  the  alternative  of  loose  'connections 
with  temporary  mistresses. 

"  The  life-long  union,"  says  he,  "  of  one  man 
and  of  one  woman  should  be  the  normal  or  domi- 
nant type  of  intercourse  between  the  sexes." 
"But  it  by  no  means  follows,  that,  because  it 
should  be  the  dominant  type,  it  should  be  the  only 
one,  or  that  the  interests  of  society  demand  that 
all  connections  should  be  forced  into  the  same  die. 
Connections  which  are  confessedly  only  for  a  few 
years  have  always  subsisted  side  by  side  with  per- 
manent marriages ;  and  in  periods  when  public 
opinion,  acquiescing  in  their  propriety,  inflicts  no 
excommunication  on  one  or  both  of  the  partners 
when  these  partners  are  not  living  the  demoralis- 
ing and  degrading  life  which  accompanies  the  con- 
sciousness of  guilt,  and  when  proper  provision  is 
made  for  the  children  who  are  born,  it  would  be, 
I  believe,  impossible  to  prove,  by  the  light  of  sim- 
ple and  unassisted  reason,  that  such  connections 
should  be  invariably  condemned.  It  is  extremely 
important,  both  for  the  happiness  and  for  the  moral 
well-being  of  men,  that  life-long  unions  should  not 
be  elFected  simply  under  the  prompting  of  a  blind 


APPP.KDtX.  251 

appetite.  There  are  always  multitudes,  who,  in 
the  period  of  their  lives  when  their  passions  are 
most  strong,  are  incapable  of  supporting  children 
in  their  own  social  rank,  and  who  would  therefore 
injure  society  by  marrying  in  it,  but  are,  nevef* 
theless,  perfectly  capable  of  securing  an  honorable 
career  for  their  illegitimate  children  in  the  lower 
social  sphere  to  which  they  would  naturally  belong. 
Under  the  conditions  I  have  mentioned,  these  con* 
nections  are  not  injurious,  but  beneficial,  to  the 
weaker  partner  ;  they  soften  the  differences  of  rank, 
they  stimulate  social  habits,  and  they  do  not  pro- 
duce upon  character  the  degrading  effect  of  pro- 
miscuous intercourse,  or  upon  society  the  injurious 
effects  of  imprudent  marriages,  one  or  the  other  of 
which  will  multiply  in  their  absence.  In  the  im- 
mense variety  of  circumstances  and  characters, 
cases  will  always  appear  in  which,  on  utilitarian 
grounds,  they  might  seem  advisable." 

Thus,  at  last,  this  fashionable  vice  has  lifted  the 
mask  of  hypocrisy  a  little,  and  found  a  voice,  and 
spoken  for  itself.  And  thus  has  the  learned 
monogamous  moralist  at  once  admonished  and 
encouraged  the  seducer,  '*  You  may  love  and 
ruin  as  many  virtuous  young  women  as  you  can, 
if  you  will  only  disown  them  and  cast  them  off  at 
last.  The  more  such  'conquests'  over  female 
honor  you  achieve,  the  more  will  the  world  admire 
you,  and  smooth  your  way  to  future  victories  of 


252  APPENDIX. 

the  same  sort ;  for  '  these  connections  have  always 
subsisted  side  by  side  with  permanent  marriages,' 
and  they  are  tlierefore  right.  They  '  are  not  inju- 
rious, but  beneficial,'  when  made  '  only  for  a  few 
years,'  or  a  few  months  ;  but  you  must  not  marry. 
Impossible  !  Marriage  for  love,  especially  out  of 
your  '  own  social  rank,'  '  is  the  prompting  of  a 
blind  passion,'  and  '  would  injure  society.'  One 
such  marriage  would  be  highly  '  imprudent ; '  and 
more  than  one  would  be  horrible,  and  would  send 
you  to  prison.  You  may  safely  promise  to  marry 
as  many  as  you  please,  if  you  cannot  seduce  them 
otherwise ;  but  you  must  take  care  not  to  do  it 
before  a  witness,  or  in  your  own  handwriting  ;  for 
plural  marriage  is  a  crime,  but  plural  seduction  is 
an  honor !  " 

Such  is  the  "  higher  state  "  of  monogamy,  and 
such  the  upshot  of  its  boasted  equality  ;  for  "  in 
no  other  system  does  woman  assume  the  position 
of  the  equal  of  man."  The  polygamist  is  stupid. 
He  gives  his  honest  hand  to  each  of  his  wives,  to 
have  and  to  hold  till  death  ;  and  his  honor  and  his 
happiness  are  thenceforth  theirs.  The  more  astute 
monogamist  has  all  the  women  he  wants,  but  as- 
sumes no  solemn  vows,  and  only  trifles  with  their 


APPENDIX.  253 

love.  But  he  is  wiser  than  they  ;  nay,  lie  is  better. 
He  is  made  of  finer  clay.  The  polite  world  wel- 
comes the  innocent  seducer  into  society  with  one 
hand,  and  shuts  its  doors  against  his  guilty  victims 
with  the  other.  On  him  the  most  respectable 
ladies,  married  and  unmarried,  lavish  their  atten- 
tions and  their  smiles,  while  they  lift  their  skirts 
in  lofty  disdain  from  the  slightest  contact  with  his 
mistresses.  This  pure  system  is  pre-eminently 
Christian,  for  it  obeys  so  perCectly  the  golden 
Christian  rule,  to  do  to  others  as  we  wish  them  to 
do  to  us  ;  it  has  every  convenience,  and  not  one 
inconvenience,  of  polygamy  ;  it  yields  full  sway 
to  all  its  amorous  passions,  but  submits  to  none  of 
its  burdens  and  safeguards  :  in  a  word,  the  sys- 
tem of  monogamy,  according  to  its  own  showir^ 
above,  affords  every  possible  indulgence  to  all  the 
men,  and  no  possible  protection  to  half  the  women. 
Its  equality  is  like  its  morality  ;  and  both  are,  like 
its  logic,  superlatively  Homan. 

But  this  notion  of  the  alleged  equality  of  the' 
sexes  under  the  system  of  monogamy  is  so  absurd, 
that  Mr.  Lecky  himself  dissents  from  it  on  another 
page,  and  thus  virtually  contradicts  himself,  and 
abandons  the  arp;ument. 


254  APPENDIX. 

"  The  fundamental  truth,"  says  lie,  "  that  the 
same  act  can  never  be  at  once  venial  for  a  man  to 
demand,  and  infamous  for  a  woman  to  accord, 
though  nobly  enforced  by  the  early  Christians,  has 
not  passed  into  the  popular  sentiment  of  Christen- 
dom. At  the  present  day,  though  the  standard  of 
morals  is  far  higher  than  in  pagan  Rome,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  inequality  of  the  cen- 
sure which  is  bestowed  upon  the  two  sexes  is  not 
as  great  as  in  the  days  of  paganism.  .  .  .  The 
character  of  the  seducer  .  .  .  has  been  glorified 
and  idealised  in  the  popukir  literature  of  Christen- 
dom in  a  manner  to  which  we  can  find  no  parallel 
in  antiquity.  When  we  reflect  that  the  object  of 
-such  a  man  is,  by  the  coldest  and  most  deliberate 
treachery,  to  blast  the  lives  of  innocent  women  ; 
when  we  compare  the  levity  of  his  motives  with 
the  irreparable  injury  he  inflicts ;  and  Avhen  we 
remember  that  he  can  only  deceive  his  victim  by 
persuading  her  to  love  him,  and  can  only  ruin  her 
by  persuading  her  to  trust  him,  —  it  must  be  owned 
that  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  cruelty  more 
Avanton  and  more  heartless,  or  a  character  com- 
bining more  numerous  elements  of  infamy  and 
dishonor.  The  contrast  between  the  levity  with 
which  the  frailty  of  man  has  in  most  ages  been 
regarded,  and  the  extreme  severity  with  which 
women  who  have  been  guilty  of  the  same  offence 
have  been  treated,  forms  one  of  the  most  singular 
anomalies  in  history,  and  appears  the  more  re- 
markable when  we  remember  that  the  temptation 
usually  springs  from  the  sex  which  is  so  readily 
pardoned;  that  the  sex  which  is  visited  with  such 
crushing  penalties  is  proverbially^  the  most  weak  ; 


APPENDIX.  255 

and  that  in  the  case  of  women,  but  not  in  the  case 
of  men,  the  vice  is  very  commonly  the  result  of 
misery  and  poverty." 

Now,  I  charge  this  anomalous  inequality,  this 
injustice,  and  this  cruelty,  which  do  such  violence 
to  every  noble  sentiment  of  humanity,  mainly  to 
the  artificial  system  of  monogamy.  There  are  no 
traces  of  them  in  the  Bible,  nor  in  polygamous  law 
generally.  By  the  divine  law,  the  parties  to  the 
same  act  are  held  guilty  of  the  same  crime.  The 
only  question  is,  whether  the  woman  be  another 
man's  wife  or  not.  If  she  is,  the  crime  is  adultery 
in  both,  and  both  are  to  be  punished  with  death. 
If  she  be  unmarried,  the  penalty  is,  that  they  must 
be  married  to  each  other  till  death  shall  part  them, 
whether  he  has  another  wife  or  not.  If  this  pen- 
alty should  always  be  enforced,  what  a  deal  of 
misery  it  would  prevent !  Men's  wanton  passions 
would  be  under  better  government  than  they  now 
are,  and  they  would  look  before  they  leap. 

One  more  paragraph,  and  then  I  shall  have  done 
with  Mr.  Lccky.  I  have  often  asserted,  and  re- 
peatedly proved,  that  prostitution  is  a  necessary 
part  of  monogamy ;  and  I  find  an  unexpected,  an 


256  APPENDIX. 

ample  and  a  distinct  admission  of  this  indictment 
against  the  system. 

"  That  unhappy  being,"  he  says,  ^  whose  very 
name  it  is  a  shame  to  speak,  .  .  .  who  is  scorned 
and  insulted  as  the  vilest  of  her  sex,  and  doomed, 
for  the  most  part,  to  disease,  and  abject  wretched- 
ness, and  an  early  death,  .  .  .  herself  the  supreme 
type  of  vice,  she  is,  ultimately,  the  most  efficient 
guardian  of  virtue.  But  for  her,  the  unchallenged 
purity  of  countless  happy  homes  would  be  polluted  ; 
and  not  a  few,  who,  in  the  pride  of  their  untempted 
chastity,  think  of  her  with  an  indignant  shudder, 
would  have  knovvj;i  the  agony  of  remorse  and  de- 
spair. On  that  one  degraded  and  ignoble  form 
are  concentrated  the  passions  that  might  have  filled 
the  world  Avith  shame.  She  remains,  while  creeds 
and  civilisations  fall,  the  eternal  priestess  of  hu- 
manity, blasted  for  the  sins  of  the  people." 

In  this  passage,  it  is  at  once  apparent  that  Mr. 
Lecky  has  gone  quite  beyond  me.  1  charge,  that 
prostitution  is  an  evil  to  be  deplored  and  prevented, 
the  open  or  clandestine  sufferance  cf  which  is 
necessary  only  to  the  system  of  monogamy ;  and 
that  it  would  be  prevented,  or,  at  least,  greatly 
mitigated,  by  the  abolition  of  that  system,  for  which 
every  honest  man  should  work  and  pray.  He 
avers,  that  prostitution  is  au  evil,  but  a  wholesome 
evil,  essentially  and  eternally  necessary  to  the  best 


APPENDIX,  257 

good  of  society  ;  and  that  all  efforts  to  suppress  it 
are  useless  and  vain,  if  not  wrong ;  that  it  should 
be  licensed  and  regulated;  that  it  is  the  safety-- 
valve  of  civilization,  which  would  otherwise  ex- 
plode ;  the  cursed  scape-goat  of  the  world,  which 
would  else  all  go  to  ruin. 

In  answer  to  this  horrid  doctrine,  I  can  only  say 
that  I  cannot  give  up  my  daughters  to  become 
harlots,  even  if  the  world  must  go  to  ruin  ;  nor 
can  I  require  any  other  parent  to  give  up  his  or 
hers.  1  am  sufficiently  a  Christian  to  believe  that 
I  should  love  my  neighbor  as  myself;  sufficiently 
a  philanthropist  to  believe  that  all  sinners  are  my 
neighbors,  for  whose  present  reformation  and  final 
salvation  I  am  bound  to  labor ;  and  sufficiently 
evangelical  to  believe  that  no  other  vicarious  savior 
than  Christ  is  necessary  ".for  the  sins  of  the 
people." 

Thus  I  have  given  ample  space,  and  full  expres- 
sion to  these  arguments  for  monogamy,  and  for  the 
several  forms  of  its  necessary  prostitution  ;  request- 
ing my  opponents  to  reciprocate  this  favor  by 
placing  my  arguments  side  by  with  theirs,  and  en- 
treating the  public  to  judge  between  them,  and,  be- 
fore aAvarding  judgment,  to  be  sure  to  hear  the  other 
17 


258  APPENDIX, 

side.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  Holy  Bible,  it 
teaches  the  innocence  of  polygamy,  and  the  sinful- 
ness of  every  form  of  sexual  indulgence  not 
guarded  by  a  life-long  marriage.  If  there  is  any 
truth  in  history,  it  teaches  the  innate  impurity  of 
enforced  monogamy,  —  an  impurity  which  has  al- 
ways increased  with  the  increase  of  wealth  and 
the  advance  of  civilization  ;  which  perverted  Chris- 
tianity itself  is  powerless  to  prevent ;  which  has 
corrupted  and  wasted  many  nations ;  and  into 
which  we  are  drifting  with  inevitable  certainty, 
and  from  which  nothing  but  an  extension  of  the 
benefits  and  the  safeguards  of  marriage  can  ever  de- 
liver us,  —  all  which  propositions  are  demonstrated 
in  "  The  History  and  Philosophy  of  Marriage." 

I  beg  leavo  to  refer,  also,  to  a  recent  work  enti- 
tled "  An  Historical  Sketch  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy 
in  the  Christian  Church.  By  H.  C.  Lea."  Phila- 
delphia :  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.,  1867. 

This  is  a  valuable  repertory  of  authentic  re- 
corded facts,  cited  from 

"  Many  a  quaint  and  curious  volume  of  forgotten  lore,'* 

confirming  the  views  advanced  in  ''  The  History 


APPENDIX,  259 

and  Philosophy  of  Marriage  "  in  respect  of  the 
degrading  influences  of  the  Roman  system  of  re- 
stricted marriage,  from  which  I  have  proved  our 
European  monogamy  to  have  been  derived.  I 
earnestly  commend  this  book  to  the  attention  of 
every  student  of  moral  philosophy,  and  to  that  of 
every  Christian  philanthropist. 

Conybeare  and  Howson's  "  Life  and  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul"  contains  the  following  note  on  1  Tim. 
iii.  2,  concerning  the  "  one  wife "  of  a  bishop, 
which  I  place  alongside  of  Dr.  McKnight's  (page 
72).  It  also  confirms  my  own  statements  in  the 
chapter  on  the  origin  of  monogamy. 

"  In  the  corrupt  facility  of  divorce  allowed  both 
by  the  Greek  and  Roman  law,  it  was  very  common 
for  man  and  wife  to  separate,  and  marry  other 
parties,  during  the  life  of  one  another.  Thus  a 
man  might  have  three  or  four  living  wives  ;  or 
rather  women  who  had  all  successively  been  his 
wives.  ...  A  similar  code  is  [now]  unhappily  to 
be  found  in  Mauritius  ;  there  ...  it  is  not  un- 
common to  meet  in  society  three  or  four  women 
Avho  have  all  been  the  Avives  of  the  same  man; 
.  .  .  We  believe  it  is  this  kind  of  successive  polyg- 
amy, rather  than  simultaneous  polygamy,  which  is 
here  spoken  of  as  disqualifying  for  the  Presbyter- 
ate.     So  Beza." 


CRITIQUE. 

By  J.  A.  H.,  Esq. 


.  -.^e^o 


Springfield,  Mass.,  Sept.  25, 1869. 
To  the  Author  of  "  The  Historij  and  Philosophy  of  Marriage.'*^ 

Dear  Sir,  —  I  have  read  carefully  your  little 
work,  aud  will,  as  briefly  as  possible,  notice  a  few 
conclusions,  which  seem  faulty  to  my  mind  ;  and,  to 
the  best  of  my  ability,  will  state  wherein  I  should 
differ  with  you.  First,  as  to  your  position  that 
man  is  not  capable  of  loving  one  woman,  and  her 
only,  and  that  woman  is  pre-eminently  devoted  to 
one  man  ;  thus  making  man  a  promiscuous  animal, 
while  the  opposite  is  true  of  woman.  Laying  aside 
the  exceptions,  I  think  it  can  be  shown  that  this  is 
false  doctrine,  and  that  your  conclusions  are  unwar- 
rantable from  the  premises.  For  we  find,  that,  in 
nature,  most  animals  in  a  wild  state  are  mated  :  so, 
through  the  whole  range  of  the  feathered  tribe  in 
a  state  of  nature,  the  same  is  true ;  and  the 
reason  why  the  same  law  is  not  observable  among 
domesticated  animals  and  birds  is,  I  think,  attribut- 
260 


CRITIQUE  BY  J.   A.   H,  261 

able  to  man's  interference.  From  this  I  urge  that 
God  has  made  all  his  creatures  monogamous  in 
their  instincts. 

Second,  your  statistics  to  show  that  there  are 
more  women  than  men  will  work  very  well  when 
the  test  is  applied  to  such  thickly  populated  and 
peculiarly  situated  States  as  these  in  New  England, 
and  some  of  the  Middle  States ;  but  you  will 
scarcely  claim  any  great  weight  in  the  slight  dif- 
ferences manifest  to  support  your  theory.  You  evi- 
dently rely  somewhat  upon  your  observation  that 
females  mature  at  a  much  earlier  age  than  males, 
to  support  your  statistics,  and  on  both,  to  support 
your  theory  that  the  Creator  has  thus  made  pro- 
vision for  polygamy.  It  may  be  true,  that,  in  low 
latitudes,  females  do  mature  younger  ;  but  I  believe 
that  this  is  not  true  of  Northern  climes,  and  that, 
on  the  average,  males  will  be  found  to  be  fit  for 
fathers  as  soon  as  the  opposite  sex  are  fit  to  become 
mothers. 

Third,  in  reviewing  the  lives  of  the  Gajsars  as 
an  example  of  the  condition  of  morals  in  the  Ro- 
man empire  too,  you  overlook  some  facts,  in  draw- 
ing conclusions,  quite  inexcusable.  You  attribute 
all  of  their  vices  and  sin  to  the  social  system  of 
monogamy,  and  point  to  the  polygamous  nations 
of  the  East  for  comparisons,  to  the  credit  of  the  lat- 
ter.    While  it  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  all  of  iniquity 


262  CRITIQUE  BY  J.   A.  11. 

which  human  cunning  could  devise  was  chargeable 
to  the  Romans,  yet  Sodom^  the  city  of  the  plain, 
was  the  just  subject  of  God's  wrath  as  the  penahy 
of  this  same  vice  which  is  imputed  to  the  Caesars, 
and  to  the  Romans  as  a  people,  —  this,  too,  among  a 
polygamous  people :  this  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  Sodomy  is  not  necessarily  the  child  of  monog- 
amy. And,  further,  I  believe  that  to-day,  the 
only  nation  on  the  civilized  globe  that  stands 
charged  with  Sodomy  is  Turkey^  and  the  Turks 
are  a  polygamous  people  !  If  this  docs  not  prove 
that  monogamy  is  not  responsible  for  our  sins,  it 
tends  to  show,  I  think,  that  the  remed}  does  not  lie 
in  a  plurality  of  wives. 

Fourth,  when  the  countries  of  the  East  were 
sparsely  inhabited,  or,  in  fact,  when  the  world  was 
comparatively  without  inhabitants,  the  need  for  the 
application  and  working  of  your  theory  may  have 
existed  ;  but  it  does  not  exist  now.  Why  Jesus 
Christ  did  not  rebuke  polygamy,  I  do  not  know. 
His  silence  on  this  point  proves  nothing ;  if  it  did, 
I  could  cite  many  specific  sins  of  an  equally  dis- 
gusting character  passed  over  by  him  without  a 
command  ;  but  I  suppose  he  thought  that  the  prac- 
tical working  of  Christianity  would  effectually 
break  down  polygamy  ;  and  so  it  has.  AYherever 
Christians  Imve  planted  the  standard  of  Calvary, 
this   bane   to   womanhood   disappears.     Christ,  no 


CRITIQUE  BY  J.   A,  H.  263 

doubt,  saw  these  things  in  futuro^  and  refrained 
from  uprooting  their  entire  social  system  ;  leaving 
it  to  time. 

I  could  extend  my  remarks  ad  infinitum  ;  but  I 
tliink  I  have  said  euougli.  I  think  the  work  is 
worthy  the  perusal  of  all  meii  who  are  of  a  think- 
ing turn  of  mind,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  it  is 
excellently  written.  As  designed  for  an  extensive 
sale,  I  regret  I  cannot  predict  a  success  ;  for  the 
great  army  of  martyrs  (women)  to  the  theory  will 
stifle  it  if  possible.  Again :  there  are  matters 
treated  in  the  work  (possibly  unavoidable)  which 
delicacy  would  prevent  many  from  reading,  and 
fathers  and  husbands  from  taking  into  their  fami- 
lies ;  and,  finally,  I  own,  that,  until  I  read  this 
work,  I  was  not  aware  that  so  much  could  be  said 
in  favor  of  polygamy.  J.  A.  H, 


THE  AUTHOR'S    REPLY. 


Boston,  Oct.  28,  1869. 
J.  A.  II.,  Esq.,  Spkixgfield,  Mass. 

Dear  Sir,  —  Your  critique  of"  The  History  and 
Philosophy  of  Marriage*'  has  come  to  hand,  in 
which  you  state  my  views,  somewhat  erroneously,  to 
be,  "that  man  is  not  capable  of  loving  one  woman, 
and  her  only  ;  .  . .  thus  making  man  a  promiscuous 
animal,  while  the  opposite  is  true  of  Avoman." 
These  allegations  I  respectfully  deny.  They  are 
scarcely  fair  ;  for  I  have  strongly  objected  to  all 
"  promiscuous  '*  intercourse,  throughout  my  trea- 
tise ;  and  it  is  my  main  charge  against  enforced 
monogamy  that  it  tends  to  promote  it.  I  am  sorry 
to  be  misunderstood.  I  say  a  pure  and  honest 
plural  marriage  should  be  permitted  to  some  meii 
of  superior  vitality  and  great  reproductive  power, 
on  account  of  the  unfortunate  imbecility  or  barren- 
ness of  some  women.  I  admit  that  monogamy  is 
the  normal  type  of  marriage  between  perfectly 
264 


THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY,  265 

healthful  persons  ;  but,  as  the  women  are  less  health- 
ful and  more  numerous  than  the  men,  tlie  two 
inequalities  should  correct  each  other.  (Pp.  "62, 
170,198,  248,  &c.) 

You  assert  that  animals  in  a  state  of  nature  are 
not  polygamous,  and  hence  that  our  Creator  has 
not  designed  that  man  should  be.  I  admit  that  this 
may  be  true  of  carnivorous  beasts  of  prey  and  of 
solitary  habits,  but  is  not  true  of  herbivorous  and 
omnivorous  animals  of  social  habits  ;  for  they  are 
usually  polygamous  :  but  man  is  both  omnivorous 
and  social,  and  hence  by  this  analogy  he  should  be 
polygamous.  The  gallinaceous  birds  are  also  polyga- 
mous, while  birds  of  prey  are  not ;  but  the  analogy 
in  this  case  is  too  remote  to  be  of  much  benefit  to 
either  side  of  the  question  :  when  we  shall  have 
acquired  wings,  we  shall  neither  marry,  nor  be  given 
in  marriage. 

2.  You  say,  my  "statistics  to  show  that  there 
are  more  women  than  men  will  work  very  well  in 
"New  England,"  &c.,  but  not  generally.  My  prop- 
osition is  this,  "  The  number  of  marriageable 
women  always  exceeds  the  number  of  marriageable 
men  . .  .  except  in  those  States  in  which  the  popula- 
tion is  largely  made  up  by  foreign  immigration  ;" 
and  I  cite  public  documents  to  prove  that  this  is 
true  of  "  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  the 
population  of  Europe,"  and  of  many  different  States 


266  THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 

ia  America  (p.  45)  ;  and  I  challenge  you  to  produce 
any  contrary  statistics,  except  in  cases  affected  by 
immigration  as  aforesaid.  These  public  documents 
and  other  authentic  statistics  have  established  five 
important  fads  :  (1)  That  about  half  the  popula- 
tion of  every  State  consists  of  children  under  age, 
(2)  of  whom  the  majority  are  males ;  (3)  that, 
after  marriageable  age,  the  females  are  more 
numerous,  (4)  on  account  of  the  greater  mortality 
of  male  children  ;  and  (5)  that  the  whole  number 
of  females  exceeds  the  whole  number  of  males.  It 
is  a  necessary  conclusion,  therefore,  that  the  number 
o^  marriageable  females  must  still  more  exceed  the 
number  of  marriageable  males.  This  last  proposi* 
tion  is  often  true,  even  when,  on  account  of  immi- 
gration, the  whole  number  of  males  exceeds  the 
whole  number  of  females.  I  invite  your  special 
attention  to  an  examination  of  the  statistics  of 
Pennsylvania.  (See  Table,  p.  47.) 

In  the  year  1860,  the  whole  number  of  males  in 
that  State  was  1,454,419,  and  the  number  of  females 
1,451,796  ;  hence  there  were  3,723  more  males 
than  females.  Yet  at  the  same  time  there  were 
more  marriageable  women  than  men,  for  there  were 
1 1 ,902  more  males  than  females  under  fifteen  years 
of  age;  therefore  there  were  7,179  more  females 
than  males  over  fifteen,  while  there  were  10,826 
more  females  than  males   between  the  ai^es  of  fif- 


THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY.  267 

teen  and  twenty,  and  17,588  more  females  than 
males  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  thirty. 

Your  assertion,  that  the  earlier  maturity  of  women 
"  is  not  true  in  Northern  climes,"  &c.,  is  unsup- 
ported by  any  reason  oi*  authority,  while  it  has  a 
color  of  truth  ;  for  there  are  some  exceptions  in 
extreme  polar  regions  :  but  the  rule  as  I  give  it  is 
correct  of  nine-tenths  of  the  race  ;  and  I  cite  every 
respectable  work  on  physiology  in  proof  of  it. 

3.  You  object  to  my  ''charging  the  vices  of  tbo 
CaBsars  to  their  monogamy,"  and  triumphantly  point 
to  the  Sodomy  of  polygamous  Turkey,  and  of  an- 
cient Sodom  itself,  in  support  of  this  objection.  My 
reason  for  relating  the  family  history  of  the  Cassars 
was  not  so  much  to  charge  all  their  vices  to  their 
monogamy  as  to  give  a  true  picture  of  their  social 
life  and  their  marriage-system  at  a  time  distin- 
guished by  the  concurrence  of  two  great  events,  — 
the  conquest  of  Northern  Europe,  which  imposed 
the  system  of  Roman  monogamy  upon  the  civilized 
world  ;  and  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  by  an 
early  perversion  of  which  that  system  was  invested 
with  the  sanctity  of  a  religious  institution,  and 
many  of  its  repulsive  vices  were  perpetuated  by  the 
most  religious  people,  and  have  thus  come  down  to 
modern  times.  In  the  analysis  and  discussion  of 
these  vices,  special  reference  was  had  to  prostitution 
and  divorce ;  and  the  least  possible  allusion  was 


288  THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 

made  to  Sodomy,  on  account  of  its  remote  relation 
to  marriage,  and  its  comparative  absence  from  our 
Western  civilization  ;  and  all  allusion  to  it  would 
kave  been  omitted  if  faithfulness  to  historical  truth 
had  allowed.  Yet,  although  its  discussion  does  not 
necessarily  belong  to  the  marriage-question,  it  is 
closely  connected  with  its  history,  since  it  arises 
from  one  of  the  perversions  of  the  amorous  propen- 
sity. Other  readers  of  ''  The  History  and  Philoso- 
phy of  Marriage  "  have  therefore  noticed  the  same 
omissions  which  you  have  :  they,  too,  have  pointed 
to  Sodom  and  to  Turkey ;  and  because  I  have  not 
attempted  to  prove  that  every  Roman  vice  was 
derived  from  their  monogamy,  or  was  stimulated 
by  it,  they  will  not  admit  that  I  have  proved  any 
of  them  to  have  been.  Hence  I  am  obliged  to  meet 
the  issue  fully ;  to  lay  aside  all  fastidious  scru- 
ples ;  and  to  state  what  I  have  gathered  of  the 
origin  of  Sodomy,  and  its  relation  to  the  early  his- 
tory of  marriage. 

The  rise  of  this  detestable  vice  in  Europe  is 
proved  to  be  connected  with  that  of  enforced  mo- 
uogainy.  This  marriage-system  first  appeared  in 
Greece  during  the  second  period  of  its  history,  and 
Sodomy  immediately  followed  in  its  train.  There 
are  no  traces  of  it,  as  Mr.  Lecky  remarks  (''  Histo- 
ry of  European  Morals,"  vol.  ii.  p.  311),  in  Homer 
oriaHesiod;   but  the  dramatic  poets  and  the  art- 


THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY.  269 

ists  of  the  monogamous  period  of  Grecian  history 
abound  in  allusions  to  it  ;*yet  Mr.  Lecky  errs,  I 
think,  in  attributinoj  its  rise  to  the  Grecian  games ; 
for  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  an  importation 
from  Phoenicia,  whence  it  is  well  known  the  Greeks 
were  accustomed  to  borrow  very  largely  at  that 
period,  and  where  its  history  can  be  traced  back, 
even  to  the  time  of  the  deluge. 

In  the  ninth  chapter  of  Genesis,  it  is  stated  that 
Ham,  one  of  the  sous  of  Noah,  and  a  monogamist, 
had  seen  his  father's  nakedness;  a  very  common 
Hebrew  euphemism  to  imply  something  much 
worse :  for  it  is  further  said,  that  when  "  Noah 
awoke  from  his  wine,  and  knew  what  his  younger 
son  had  do7ie  unto  him,''  he  forthwith  cursed  his 
posterity  to  the  latest  generation, — an  apparently 
absurd  and  unjust  penalty  for  seeing  an  indecency  ; 
but  really,  if  my  interpretation  be  correct,  it  was 
only  a  very  just  and  very  proper  denunciation  of 
that  unnatural  vice,  which  has  always  been  hered- 
itary in  that  race.  It  was  in  Palestine  and  Phoe- 
nicia that  the  family  of  Canaan,  the  accursed  son  of 
Ham,  settled  (Gen.  x.  15-19),  where  they  were 
all  addicted  to  this  vice  ;  from  the  corruption  of 
which,  and  of  kindred  vices,  named  in  Leviticus 
(chapters  eighteen  and  twenty),  the  invading  Isl*ael- 
ites  were  warned  to  beware,  and  for  which  it  is 
therein  expressly  declared,  that  the  Canaanites 
were  doomed  to  destruction. 


270  TEE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY, 

In  later  years,  the  Carthaginians,  a  Phoenician 
colony,  exerted  a  similar  corrupting  influence  upon 
Rome  (Lecky,  "European  Morals,"  i.  177,  ii.  320)  ; 
for  it  was  six  years  after  the  first  Punic  War,  in  the 
year  of  the  city  520,  that  the  first  divorce  occurred 
at  Rome  (Lecky,  ii.  317),  which  soon  became  no- 
toriously common  there,  as  well  as  the  more  odious 
vice  of  Sodomy.  The  Romans  had  already  im- 
bibed a  taint  of  this  vice,  along  with  their  monog- 
amy, from  the  Greeks,  at  a  very  early  period  ;  but 
the  wars  with  Carthage  increased  it  greatly.  The 
first  Punic  War  lasted  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  , 
and  gave  ample  time  for  the  adoption  of  such  for- 
eign practices  as  wars  are  always  apt  to  introduce. 
Many  Romans  had  been  long  detained  as  prisoners 
at  Carthage,  and  had  learned  the  language  and  the 
licentious  manners  of  that  city :  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  the  two  states  were  brought  into  intimate  com- 
mercial relations,  and  an  inundation  of  Punic  vice 
was  the  inevitable  consequence.  Nor  was  that  cor- 
rupt city  sufifered  to  endure.  The  voice  of  the  aged 
Cato,  who  visited  Carthage  during  the  next  war  to 
arrange  an  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  who  saw  the 
corruptions  of  the  city  with  the  experienced  eye  of 
a  censor,  was  as  the  voice  of  God,  when,  on  his 
return  to  Rome,  he  closed  his  frequent  speeches  in 
the  senate  with  the  ominous  and  terrible  sentence, 
€t  preterea  censeo  Carthaginem  esse  ddendam  ("  I 


TEE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY,  271 

insist  that  Carthage  must  be  destroyed  ").  Our  re- 
maining knowledge  of  the  social  systems  of  the 
Sidonians,  the  Tyrians,  and  the  Carthaginians,  is 
quite  meagre,  at  best :  but  it  is  demonstrable  that 
polygamy  was  rare  in  those  states  ;  that  some  ap- 
proach to  enforced  monogamy  was  first  attempted  ; 
and  that  some  notions  of  that  doctrine,  since  called 
the  Malthusian  doctrine,  which  discourages  an  in- 
crease of  population  on  grounds  of  political  econo- 
my, were  first  current  there  ;  for  both  Polybius,*and 
Aristotle  in  his  "  Politica,"  assert  that  the  Cartha- 
ginian polity  most  resembled  that  of  Sparta,  where 
it  is  well  known  the  social  and  political  systems 
were  inseparably  blended.  The  Spartans  were 
monogamous  ;  they  discouraged  a  rapid  increase  of 
population  ;  they  suppressed  the  maternal  instincts 
by  taking  the  children  from  their  mothers  at  a  very 
early  age,  to  be  brought  up  at  the  public  nurseries 
and  schools,  exposing  the  feeble  infants  to  perish, 
and  raising  none  but  the  strongest.  At  Carthage,  it 
is  also  known,  that  the  families  of  the  nobles  were 
small  and  few  (Heeren's  Ideen,  vol.  ii,  part  1,  p. 
118),  and  extremely  jealous  of  each  other:  hence 
their  failure  to  support  Hannibal  in  Italy  ;  hence  his 
recall,  his  disasters,  and  the  rapid  ruin  of  the  state. 
In  respect  of  the  Sodomy  of  modern  Turkey,  I 
deny  that  it  was  introduced  by  the  polygamous 
Turks  themselves,  but  assert  that  it  has  obviously 


272  THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 

been  inherited  and  propagated  there  by  the  miser- 
able degenerate  sons  of  degenerate  Greek  and 
Roman  and  Phoenician  sires.  And  this  is  only  an 
illustratiou  and  confirmation  of  the  theological 
opinion,  that  the  utter  extermination  of  the  Canaan- 
ites  by  the  invading  Hebrews  was  a  dire  necessity, 
that  they  might  not  be  contaminated  by  their  vices, — 
those  very  vices  which  are  now  destroying  the  vic- 
torious Turks,  Avho,  in  their  greater  mercy,  spared 
the  unarmed  and  the  vanquished. 

4.  You  admit  that  polygamy  was  anciently  al- 
lowed for  the  more  rapid  increase  of  population, 
when  the  world  was  new,  but  object,  that  such  a 
need  does  not  exist  now.  The  objection  is  specious, 
but  unsound.  The  world  is  no  longer  new  ;  but  it 
is  still  unpeopled.  The  first  law  of  God  —  "  In- 
crease and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  and 
subdue  it "  —  has  never  been  sufficiently  obeyed. 
The  earth  is  not  replenished,  and  not  subdued.  It 
does  not  contain,  to-day,  one-twentieth  part  of  the 
population  which  it  might  easily  support,  and  sup- 
port with  even  more  ease  than  its  present  popula- 
tion. The  Malthusian  doctrine  is  now  regarded  by 
most  moralists  to  be  as  unphilosophical  as  it  is 
selfish,  cruel,  and  unnatural.  The  greater  portion 
of  the  earth  is  even  now  but  a  new  farm,  and  the 
present  inhabitants  but  the  first  pioneers  of  improve- 
ment, who  are  breaking  up  the  prairies,  felling  tho 


THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY.  273 

forests,  extracting  the  stumps,  and  gathering  out 
the  stones  ;  our  children's  children  will  only  begin 
to  live  in  comfort  and  abundance  upon  a  cultivated 
earth.      The   first   want   which   the   poet    Milton 
,  ascribes  to  the  primitive  gardeners  in  Eden  is  still 
'  our  greatest  want,  ~  the  want  of  "  more  hands." 
I      5.    The  silence  of  Jesus  concerning  polygamy  I 
shall  still  claim  as  an  argument  in  its  favor,  not- 
withstanding  your   observations.     My   arguments 
need  not  be  repeated  here. 

6.  The  reluctance  of  the  Avomen  to  adopt  a  po- 
lygamous system  has  also  been  anticipated  in  my 
work.  The  conservative  element  in  the  female 
character,  and  the  subserviency  of  the  sex  to  fashion 
and  to  public  opinion,  are  all  well  known,  and  all 
designed,  I  believe,  by  our  Creator,  for  our  com- 
mon good.  Yet  because  they  cannot,  at  once,  see 
the  propriety  and  necessity  of  the  system  of  plural- 
ity of  wives,  this  fact  should  not  deter  us  from  its 
investigation  ;  for,  if  it  should  prove  to  be  a  purer 
and  better  system,  we  shall  be  sure  of  their  approval 
in  the  end  ;  and,  when  it  is  once  approved  and  prac- 
tised, the  fairer  sex,  so  far  from  being  its  "  mar- 
tyrs," will  be  the  principal  gainers  by  it. 

7.  I  am  fully  aware  that  I  attempt  the  discus- 
sion of  a  very  delicate  subject,  and  that  my  book  is 
open  to  objections  on  that  score  ;  but  it  is  only,  as 
the  Bible  is,  necessarily  so,  in  order  to  state  such 

18 


274  THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 

facts  as  ought  to  be  known,  and  such  as  are  essen- 
tial to  a  philosophical  examination  of  the  history 
of  marriage.     (See  Preface.) 

For  your  final  complimentary  remarks  I  return 
my  grateful  acknowledgments. 

The  Author. 


IlifDEX. 


Abort  ion,  195 :  monogamy  causes, 
198. 

Asceticism,  131;  Lecky's  sketch 
of,  237. 

Acte,  mistress  of  Nero,  113, 180. 

Adultery,  defined  and  discussed. 

Agrippina's  incest  with  Cali- 
gula, 105  :  her  marriage  to 
Claudius,  110;  her  former  mar- 
riages, 111. 

Amorous  passions  more  Intense 
in  men  than  in  women,  62,  169, 
171. 

Anthon,  Dr.  C,  quoted,  80,  83. 

Art,  inspired  by  love,  31. 

Augustus  and  his  four  wives,  91 ; 
his  profligacy,  96. 

Barrenness,  caused  by  monoga- 
my, 82,  204;  is  a  curse,  yet  our 
women  desire  it,  200;  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, 205. 

Baxley,  Dr.,  "  What  he  Raw  in 
Lima,"  138. 

Bible,  the,  teaches  polygamy,  63; 
defines  adultery,  183. 

Bishop,  a,  one  wife  of,  71,  2.53. 

Bulwer's  History  of  Athens,  80. 

Birth-ratC;  in  Massachusetts,  204. 

Caesar,  Julius,  and  his  fourwives, 
88;  divorces  Pompeia,  89;  his 
profligacy,  90. 

Caesonia,  wife  of  Caligula,  104, 
106. 

Caligula  and  his  four  wives,  101, 
102;  incest  with  his  sisters,  103, 
105;  licenses  prostitutes,  105. 

Catholicism,  its  antiquity  and  im- 


mutability, 136;  its  vices,  137, 
157. 

Celibacy  of  priests,  &c.,  arose 
from  Gnosticism  and  neo-Pla- 
tonism,  127;  causes  licentious- 
ness, 138,  240. 

Chastity,  tarnished  by  divorce, 
18;  of  polygamists,  60,241;  re- 
quired of  women  alone  by 
Greeks  and  Romans,  79,  94. 

Civilization  indebted  to  love,  31. 

Claudius  and  his  six  wives,  99, 
107. 

Clodius  the  infamous,  87,  89. 

Conjugal  love  in  men  and  women, 
217. 

Constantino  and  Licinius,  129. 

Conybeare  and  Howson's  St. 
Paul,  253. 

Councils  of  the  Church,  127, 132. 

Cowper,  William,  quoted,  179, 
185. 

David  a  polygamist,  64, 193. 

Divorce,  forbidden  by  the  Bible, 
18;  frequent  among  the  Ro-^ 
mans,  82;  is  dishonorable,  187; 
caused  by  monogamy,  189 ;  of 
Henry  VIH.,  and  of  Napoleon, 
192;  of  Tamar,  193. 

"  EcceHomo,"  quoted,  158. 
Ennia,  mistress  of  Caligula,  102. 

Fecundity,  to  be  promoted,  199 ; 

a  divine  blessing,  200. 
Foliambe,  Rev.  8.  W.,  quoted, 

65. 
Froude  on  monachism,  148. 

27ii 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 


276 


INDEX, 


"Gail  Hamilton"  on  marriage, 
52. 

Gnosticism,  60,  122;  encourages 
celibacy,  138. 

Great  men  are  polygamists,  172. 

Greece,  superior  type  of  women 
in  its  polygamous  period,  243; 
the  open  sensuality  of  its  mo- 
nogamous period,  244. 

Harlot's  progress,  the,  163. 
Henry  H.  and  "  Fair  Rosamond," 

189. 
Henry   VHI.,  and    the   English 

Church,  ]46 ;  his  six  wives,  188 ; 

divorce  of  Catharine,  191. 
Herod  Antipas,  his  adultery,  70. 
Herod  the  Great,  and  his  nine 

wives,  71. 
Home,    woman's    sphere,     161 ; 

many  women  have  none,  162, 

213. 
Hypocrisy  of  monogamy,  175. 

Idolatry  and  monogamy,  59. 

Impurity  of  monogamy,  79,  151, 
244. 

Infidelity,  caused  by  our  preju- 
dices against  the  polygamy  of 
the  Bible,  65. 

Jealousy,  does  polygamy  cause 
it?  208. 

Jesus  did  not  abolish  or  change 
marriage-laws,  69. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  on  ridicul- 
ing love,  35. 

Josephine's  divorce,  192. 

Josephus  on  polygamy  of  Herod, 
71. 

Julia,  daughter  of  Csesar,  88. 

Julia,  daughter  of  Augustus,  93. 

Keightley,  "  History  of  Roman 
Empire,"  55,  88;  his  character 
of  Augustus,  97;  of  Tiberius, 
101;  on  Gnosticism,  133;  on 
the  errors  of  Roman  Church, 
136. 

Laws,  divine,  natural,  and  civil, 
26 ;  of  marriage  are  perpetual, 
68;  levirate,  75. 

Lea's  *'  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,"  252. 


Lecky's  "History  of  European 
Morals,"  230. 

Licentiousness,  of  clergy,  134, 138, 
148;  of  Greece,  open  and  ap- 
proved, 244. 

Liddell's,  Dr.,  character  of  Cae- 
sar, 90;  of  Augustus,  97. 

Lima,  "  What  I  saw  there,"  Bax- 
ley,  138. 

Literature,  inspired  by  love,  31. 

Livia  Drusilla,  wife  of  Augustus, 
92. 

Livia  Orestilla,  wife  of  Caligula, 
103. 

Locusta  poisons  Claudius,  111; 
and  Britannicus,  114. 

Lollia  Paullina,  wife  of  Caligula, 
104. 

Love,  defined,  28;  refining,  29; 
the  birthright  of  all,  32;  in- 
spires literature  and  art,  31 ;  its 
gratification  longed  for,  33 ;  ben- 
eficial, 35;  licentious,  forbid- 
den, 37 ;  its  relation  to  marriage, 
38, 43. 

Luther's  doctrines,  and  his  prac- 
tice, 146. 

McKnight's  Commentary,  72. 

Madan's  "  Thelyphthora,"  225. 

Marriage,  defined,  40;  its  bene- 
fits, 41;  relations  to  love,  43; 
few  women  decline  it,  51 ;  pre- 
vented by  monogamy,  53;  cere- 
mony of,  55;  not  changed  by 
the  New  Testament,  68;  Ro- 
man, 82 ;  began  to  be  forbidden 
to  the  clergy  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, 127 ;  necessary  to  women, 
150;  prevents  crime,  178;  de- 
graded by  religious  ascetics, 
237. 

Marriageable  age  of  women,  47. 

Massachusetts,  statistics  of,  47, 
49,  204. 

Mediaeval  immorality,  133. 

Men  and  women,  comparative 
number  of,  47. 

Merivale's  "  History  of  Romans," 
quoted,  54,  81. 

Messalina's  lust  and  cruelty,  107- 
109. 

Milton,  John,  quoted,  3,  39,  201, 
214,  236. 


INDEX. 


277 


Missionaries  do  not  treat  polyga- 
my uniformly,  17-21. 

Monogamy,  defined,  40;  prevents 
marriage,  44,  53;  cannot  exist 
with  idolatry,  59;  of  bishops, 
71,  253;  origin  of,  78;  Greek 
and  Roman,  79;  of  the  Caesars, 
84 ;  as  it  is  to-day,  144 :  causes 
seduction,  159 ;  causes  chastity 
and  religion  to  be  hated,  166; 
brutality  of,  169;  hypocrisy  of, 
175;  arguments  for,  examined, 
247. 

Montanus,  his  doctrines,  126. 

Morality  of  polygamy,  73,  242. 

Morals,  impure,  of  monogamy, 
82,  152. 

Mosheim,  quoted,  125,  133. 

Murder,  caused  by  monogamy, 
186. 

Mutius  and  his  boy,  239. 

Neo-Platonism,  126. 

Napoleon's  divorce  of  Josephine, 

192. 
Nero's  seven  marriages,  112. 
Nuns  and  nunneries,  149. 

Origen's  Gnosticism  and  mutila- 
tion, 126. 

Passions,  the  intensity  of,  171, 

Philanthropy,  higher  law  of,  153. 

Plurality  of  husbands,  216. 

Polygamy,  defined,  10,  63;  little 
known,  10;  prejudices  against, 
10, 23, 57 ;  has  always  been  prac- 
tised, 11;  challenges  examina- 
tion, 12;  objections  to  it  an- 
swered, 46,  208;  origin  of,  61; 
not  barbarism,  58,  61;  gives 
every  woman  a  husband  and  a 
home,  62;  taught  in  the  Bible, 
63 ;  of  David,  64 ;  God  attests  its 
innocence,  64;  before  Moses, 
68;  morality  of,  73;  of  early 
Christians,  74;  commanded  by 
the  Bible,  75. 

Polygamists,  converted,  17;  their 
chastity,  60, 241 ;  great  men  are, 


172;    are    public   benefactors, 

249. 
Prostitutes,  licensed  by  Caligula, 

105;  and  now  in  France,  153. 
Prostitution  a  necessary  part  of 

monogamy,  151,  251. 

Religion  hated  by  monogamists, 
167,  170. 

Roman  marriages,  infrequent,  54; 
not  permanent,  81. 

Roman  Catholics  more  consistent 
than  Protcstaiits  in  their  mo- 
nogamy, 147. 

Roman  Catholicism,  its  origin, 
136;  governs  Protestants  still, 
144. 

Sex,  moral    difi'erences    of,  215, 

216. 
Simeon  Stylites,  the  saint,  238. 
Statistics  given,  4.3-49,  204. 
Strabo  ou  Corinthian  morals,  80. 

"  Thelj'phthora  "  of  Dr.  Madan, 

225. 
Theodosius  abolishes  paganism, 

130. 
TihoriuSjhis  marriages  and  vices, 

98-100. 
Truth  to  be  loved  and  followed, 

24,  145. 

Virtue  of  polygamists,  60,  241, 
243. 

Woman,  why  God  made  but  one, 
62 ;  called  by  ascetics,  the  door 
of  hell,  237 ;  her  sphere,  161 ; 
her  love  and  man's,  diflferent, 
217;  her  dependence,  natural 
and  honorable,  209. 

Women,  often  denied  the  right  of 
marriage,  44;  more  numerous 
than  men,  45;  marriageable  age 
of,  49;  are  superior  to  men  in 
some  things,  215;  are  less  am- 
orous than  men,  23,  62,  169. 

Women's  rights,  158,  210. 

Women's  wrongs,  157. 


NOTICES  OF   THE   PRESS. 


From  "  The  Boston  Advertiser ,^^  Sept.  1, 1869. 
"  '  The  History  and  Philosophy  of  Marriage,  or  Polygamy 
and  Monogamy  Compared/  ...  is  a  serious  defence  of 
polygamy  from  a  Christian  standpoint.  The  author  is  a 
Kew-Englander  by  birth,  a  Puritan  by  education,  who  has 
lived  many  years  in  India.  .  .  .  His  obsei-vations  there, 
and  acquaintance  with  missionary  laborers,  have  inclined  him 
to  look  with  favor  upon  polygamy,  and  he  has  evidently 
given  much  study  and  thought  to  the  subject." 


From  "  The  Banner  ofLight,^^  Boston,  Sept.  8, 1869. 
"  Here  is  '  a  Christian  plea  for  polygamy.'  As  such  it 
will  be  read,  first  out  of  curiosity,  and  afterwards  for  the 
ideas  it  advances.  The  latter  are  nowise  new,  yet  the  author 
puts  them  together  in  an  original  manner,  and  with  much 
force.  It  is  well  to  have  the  subject  of  marriage  discussed  in 
all  its  bearings.  This  book  attempts  that.  It  considers  the 
primary  laws  of  love  and  marriage,  the  origin  of  polygamy, 
the  origin  of  monogamy,  the  development  of  the  rule  of 
monogamy,  how  it  is  related  to  crime,  the  current  objec- 
tions to  polygamy.  Appended  to  the  whole  is  a  chapter  of 
notices  and  reviews,  including  a  searching  one  of  Lccky's 
*  History  of  European  Morals.'  The  book  will  excite  to 
reflection  wherever  read,  and  is  well  worth  reading." 


From  "  The  Springfield  Republican, '^^  Sept.  8, 18G9. 
"Here  we  have  a  devout  person,  learned  in  the  Scriptures 
and  in  other  lore,  who  stoutly  charges  that  monogamy  is  the 
relic  of  barbarism,  and  calls  polygamy  the  proper  and  civiliz- 
278 


ing  institution.  .  .  .  Startling  and  repulsive  as  this  position 
is,  there  is  really  more  to  be  said  in  its  favor  than  any  one 
who  has  not  read  this  book  may  imagine." 

From  "  The  Evening  JSFeias,'^  Salt  Lake  Citijj  Sept.  8, 1869 
"  It  is  gratifying  to  every  lover  of  truth  —  in  these  days, 
when,  instead  of  worshipping  God,  men  bow  down  to  the 
shrine  of  popularity  —  to  sec  a  man  fearlessly  step  forward, 
and  declare  the  sincere  convictions  of  his  soul,  though,  in 
so  doing,  he  conies  directly  in  contact  with  the  prejudices 
of  the  age.  The  views  of  the  writer  of  this  book  are  con- 
sidered peculiar  and  startling ;  but  he  is  credited  with  sin- 
cerity. Hon.  Geo.  Wm.  Curtis,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Recent 
Literature  in  Cornell  University,  and  F.  B.  Sanborn,  M.A., 
associate  editor  of  *The  Springfield  Republican,'  who  read 
the  proof-sheets  of  the  work,  say  that  it  has  the  curious  dis- 
tinction of  being  a  Christian  plea  for  polygamy ;  but  that  the 
author  has  treated  a  very  difficult  and  delicate  subject  with 
knowledge,  candor,  and  evident  sincerity  of  purpose;  and 
while  it  advances  opinions  with  which  they  cannot  agree, 
they  cannot  quarrel  with  its  spirit;  and  as  its  statements  and 
arguments  are  founded  on  extensive  observation  and  reading, 
it  is  entitled  to  attention,  respect,  and  refutation,  not  to  be 
met  with  mere  contradiction,  but  with  argument. 

"  This  is  fair,  and  an  evidence  that  the  world  moves.  .  .  . 
It  is  a  book  that  should  have  a  wide  circulation  and  an  atten- 
tive perusal;  both  of  which  it  will  doubtless  receive." 


From  "  The  Boston  Journal,''^  Sept.  9, 1869. 
"  Mr.  James  Campbell  has  issued  a  work  which  will  attract 
some  attention,  and  probably  draw  out  some  criticism.  It  is 
entitled  *  The  History  and  Philosophy  of  Marriage ;  or,  Po> 
lygamy  and  Monogamy  Compared.  Its  author  is  said  to  be 
a  minister;  and,  treating  his  subject  from  a  Christian  stand- 
point, he  makes  an  earnest  plea  for  polygamy.  While  a 
majority  of  its  readers,  we  believe,  will  fail  to  be  convinced 
by  its  arguments,  they  will  approve  the  spirit  in  which  it  is 
written." 


From  *'  Tlie  Commonwealth ^'^^  Boston,  Sept.  11, 1869. 
"  This  book  is  put  out  by  its  author  avowedly  as  a  plea  for 
polygamy.     It  is  correctly  written,  and  is  rather  readable  in 
its  style.     It  exhibits,  too,  in    bome  portions,  considerable 
research." 

279 


From  "  The  Boston  Advertiser -^^  Sept.  12, 1869. 
"The  author,  who  has  taken  upon  himself  the  task  of  vin- 
dicating^ polygamy  in  the  name  of  piiilanthropy,  and  has 
adopted  the  comprehensive  motto  from  an  old  play,  *  There 
shall  be  no  widows  in  the  lind,  for  I  will  marry  them  all/  — 
has  undertaken  a  weighty  task." 


From  **  The  American  Literani  Gazette^'>^  PhiladeljJhia,  Sept. 
^  15,  1869. 

"  This  is  a  difficult  and  delicate  subject,  treated  in  an  honest 
and  straightforward  way ;  and,  while  we  cannot  agree  with 
the  writer  in  his  advocacy  of  polygamy,  we  must  admire  the 
icarless  candor  with  which  he  ])romulgates  a  doctrine  which 
lie  sincerely  believes  will  benefit  his  fellow-men.  .  .  .  The 
book  is  in  many  ways  a  curious  production,  and  will  find 
many  readers  among  students  both  of  religion  and  social 
science.'' 


From  "  The  Central  Christian  Advocate,^^  St.  Louis,  Sept.  16, 1869. 
"  A  writer  of  fair  ability  deliberately  advocating  polygamy. 
The  author's  indictment  of  society  is  severe  and  deserved, 
his  remedy  absurd  and  impossible." 


From  "  The  Watchman  and  Reflector,'^  Boston,  Sept.  16, 1869. 
"  This  is  certainly  a  bold  book.    .    .   .    Seems  honest :  is 
written  with  ability." 


From  "  The  Sun,^>  New  York,  Sept.  16, 1869. 
"  A  hook  in  defence  of  polygamy,  by  a  writer  professmg  to 
be  a  Christian,  is  certainly  a  novelty  calculated  to  awaken 
attention.  Such  a  book  is  'Polygamy  and  Monogamy  Com- 
pared,'just  published  by  James  Campbell  of  Boston.  .  .  . 
On  the  scriptural  and  historical  side  of  the  argument,  our 
author  is  of  course  irrefutable.  Polygamy  is  recognized  and 
approved  over  and  over  again  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  not 
condemned  in  the  New.  Indeed,  the  injunction  of  the  apostle 
that  a  bishop  should  be  the  husband  of  one  wife  would  seem 
to  imply  that  it  was  the  custom  for  other  persons  in  the 
church  at  that  day  to  have  more  than  one.  The  practice  of 
the  world  from  the  earliest  historical  period  is  also  in  favor 
of  polygamy.  .  .  .  Polygamy  is,  as  he  says,  better  than 
prostitution  enforced  by  want,  in  which  so  many  women  are 
now  engaged ;  and  it  certainly  would  be  no  worse  if  sanc- 
tioned by  law  and  custoai  than  as  now  practised  by  another 
2S0 


name.  ...  In  the  marriage-service  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, it  is  distinctly  said  that  marriage  was  ordained  of  God 
for  the  procreation  of  offspring,  and  the  avoidance  of  fornica- 
tion; and  the  Queen  of  England  herself  had  to  hear  this 
utterance  as  she  stood  at  the  altar  with  Prince  Albert.  Those 
who  talk  of  marriage  in  this  way  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
keep  silence  when  the  polygamist  speaks.  He  is  simply 
carrying  out  their  principles  to  their  logical  results,  and  they 
cannot  meet  him  with  arguments  of  the  slightest  force.'' 


From  "  The  Democrat^^^  St.  Louis,  September,  1869. 
"  This  is  a  book  of  unusual  character.    .    .    .   The  author's 
facts  of  history,  civil  and  biblical,  his  views  of  '  the  social 
evil,'  and  its   causes,  are  all  presented  in  a  pure  spirit,  and 
with  force." 


From  *'  Coleman's  liural  World,"  St.  Louis,  September,  1869. 

"  We  judge  it  will  be  read  with  great  interest.  It  has  been 
written  from  a  Christian  standpoint,  and  abounds  with  im- 
portant historical  allusions." 


From  "  The  St.  Louis  Republican,"  September,  1869. 
"  It  is  such  a  work  as  could  only  be  the  result  of  full  con- 
fidence in  the  justice  and  right  of  the  cause  it  advocates." 


From  "  The  New -York  Times,"  September  18, 18G9. 
"  This  little  volume  is  a  literary  curiosity   ...   of  earnest- 
ness and  research;   and  we  cheerfully  admit  its  right  to  a 
courteous  hearing."  

From  "  Tlie  New  -  York  Citizen  and  Round  Tabl^"  September  18, 
1869. 
"  It  is  evident  that  the  work  is  not  by  Mr.  Emerson,  or  by 
Mr.  Alcott,  although  it  possibly  may  be  by  Mr.  Greeley.  .  .  . 
What  is  important  is,  that  such  a  work,  being,  as  it  is,  pretty 
thoroughly  considered,  and  written  with  the  fervor  of  pro- 
found conviction,  should  appear  at  this  juncture,  as  one  of 
the  proofs  of  intense  dissatisfaction  with  existing  social  rela- 
tions, which,  felt  in  Great  Britain  and  this  country,  is  stronger 
in  New  England  than  anywhere  else.  Such  a  book  is  not 
the  token  of  individual  caprice,  or  abnormal  eccentricity 
alone ;  but  of  a  pervasive  uneasiness,  —  a  general  tendency  to 
social  revolution  (of  which   the  movement  for  *  Woman's 

281 


Rights  Ms  merely  one  phase),  whose  manifestations  promise 
to  be  numerous  and  troublesome.  .  .  .  The  arguments  of  *  A 
Christian  Pliilanthropist'  are  rather  numerous  than  novel, 
although  some  of  them  strike  us  as  both  original  and  inge- 
nious. .  .  .  We  have  dwelt  at  some  length  upon  this  remark- 
able book,  not  only  because  of  the  great  interest  of  the  sub- 
ject, and  the  curious  illustration  it  affords  of  how  much  can 
be  said  in  logical  behoof  of  a  system  which  most  people  are 
aghast  at  the  bare  mention  of,  but  because  it  tokens  all  man- 
ner of  perturbations  to  come." 


From  "  The  Weekly  Student,"  Chicago,  September  23, 1869. 
"  If  any  one  wishes  to  see  an  out-and-out  argument  in 
support  of  polygamy,  as  a  curiosity,  he  may  buy  and  read 
this  book." 


From  "  The  Advance,"  Chicago,  September  23, 1869. 
'  This  is  a  marvellous  work." 


From  "  The  Kciv  -  York  Evening  Post,"  September  25, 1869. 
"  This  is  one  of  the  strange  things  of  this  strange  time,  — 
a  book  written  by  a  man  of  considerable  ability  and  learning, 
a  large  experience  of  life,  and  evident  sincerity,  in  favor  of 
polygamy  as  a  means  of  doing  away  many  of  the  evils  which 
at  present  afflict  society." 


From  "  The  Dedham  Gazette,"  September  25,  1869. 
"  It  displays  a  great  knowledge  of  history ;  and  the  author 
has  worked  up  his  materials  into  a  most  interesting  fonn. 
While  we  difler  with  the  author  in  his  conclusions,  we  cannot 
but  admire  the  talent  with  which  he  treats  his  subject,  and 
the  able  manner  of  stating  his  premises  and  conclusions." 


-    From  "  The  Albany  Evening  Journal,"  October  6, 1869. 

"Among  the  sensational  books  recently  published,  few  are 
more  striking,  novel,  or  unique  than  that  entitled  *The 
History  and  Philosophy  of  Marriage.'  " 


. '" 


From  "  T7ie  Religio- Philosophical  Journal,"  Chicago,  Oct.  23, 1869. 
:"  We  never  opened  a  book  that  contained  as  much  valuable 
information  on  the  above  subject  as  this  work." 
282 


From  "  The  Atlantic  Monthly,^^  Boston^  Kovember^  1869. 

"  *  The  History  ami  Philosophy  of  Marriage  ;  or,  Polygamy 
and  Monogamy  Compared."  '*  Tlrere  shall  be  no  widows  in 
the  land,  for  I  will  marry  them  all ;  there  shall  be  no  orphans, 
for  I  will  father  them  ail."  * 

"  There  is  a  mingling  of  gayety  and  seriousness  in  this  title 
which  at  once  fixes  the  attention.  .  .  .  We  must  own,  that 
there  is  Scripture  for  polygamy,  and  that,  if  sufficiently  ex- 
tended, it  would  put  an  end  to  the  existing  form  of  the  social 
evil,  and  would  restore  the  lost  numerical  balance  of  the  sexes, 
by  giving  every  lady  a  husband,  more  or  less.  But  polyga- 
my is  a  boon  which,  like  the  ballot,  ought  not  to  be  be- 
stowed, unsought  by  the  sex  supposed  to  be  blest  in  receiv- 
ing it.  .  .  .  Some  people  —  we  will  not  allow  that  they  are 
not  the  wisest  people,  though  it  may  be  worth  while  once  for 
all  to  silence  them  —  hold  that  nothing  is  required  to  put  an 
end  to  all  the  pother  about  woman's  right  to  vote,  and  to  be 
paid  a  man's  wages  for  a  man's  work,  but  to  give  a  husband 
to  each  of  the  agitators.  Why,  then,  should  not  the  Christian 
philanthropist  —  if  he  is  a  Christian  philanthropist,  and  not 
a  Pagan  Misanthrope  in  disguise  —  appear  in  person  at  the 
next  convention,  and  try,  on  the  principle  that  half  a  loaf  is 
better  than  none,  if  the  offer  of  part  of  a  husband  would  not 
suffice  to  hush  the  clamor?  He  himself  is  in  a  position  to 
become  an  unimpeded  sacrifice  to  the  truth,  being,  as  he  tells 
us,  a  bachelor;  and  though  we  by  no  means  think  it  just 
always  to  hold  the  preacher  to  the  practice  of  his  precepts, 
we  are  really  almost  persuaded  that  it  is  a  duty  in  the  present 
case." 

[We  thank  "  The  Atlantic  "  for  this  liberal  suggestion,  and 
will  take  it  into  serious  consideration :  so  look  out  for  us  at 
the  n^ext  convention.] 


From  "  The  American  PhrenobgicalJouimal^''^  Koveniher,  1869. 
*'  This  is  the  title  of  an  extraordinary  work.  .  .  .  lie  pro- 
ceeds to  consider  his  very  important  subject  from  points  of 
view,  moral,  physical,  and  political,  and  seeks  to  make  a  case 
on  his  own  side  as  strong  as  he  can,  assisted  by  extensive  per- 
sonal observation  and  much  reading." 


From  "  The  Western  Hampden  Times,^'  November  17, 1869. 
"  The  author  is  plainly  in  earnest,  and  deals  with  his  sub- 
ject in  no  unintelligent  manner ;  having  devoted  much 
thought  to  it.  His  arguments  are  ingenious,  his  style  easily 
followed  and  readily  comprehended,  his  motives  doubtless 
pure."  .  283 


Publisher's  Advertisement. 


Opinions  of  Eminent  Literary  Men. 


Of  Notices  received  from  Competent  Judges  to  whom 
this  work  has  been  submitted  we  insert  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

From  the  Hon.  G.  W.  Curtis,  M.A., 
Professor  of  Recent  Literature  in  Cornell  University. 
I  have  read  the  proof-sheets  of  "  The  History  and  Philos- 
ophy OF  Marriage,"  in  which  the  author  treats  a  very  diffi- 
cult and  delicate  subject  with  knowledge,  candor,  and  evident 
honesty  of  purpose.  It  is  the  contribution  of  an  argument, 
usually  wholly  unconsidered,  to  the  discussion '  of  a  question 
which  challenges  the  grave  attention  of  civilization,  and  which 
Mr.  Lecky  treats  in  his  recent  "  History  of  European  Morals," 
reaching,  however,  a  conclusion  directly  opposed  to  that  of  this 
little  work.  This  book  has  the  curious  distinction  of  being  a 
Christian  plea  for  polygamy.  I  do  not  agi'ee  with  its  conclusions  ; 
but  1  cannot  quarrel  with  its  spirit. 

GEORGE   WILLIAM  CURTIS. 
July  9,  1869. 

From  F.  B.  Sanborn,  M.A., 
Associate  Editor  of  the  Springfield  Republican. 

The  author  of  "  The  History  and  Philosophy  of  Mar- 
riage "  some  time  since  submitted  his  manuscript  to  my  exam- 
ination, and  I  have  read,  with  interest,  the  greater  part  of  the 
work.  It  advances  opinions  with  which  I  cannot  agree  ;  and 
these  are  based  upon  premises  that  I  should  very  much  question ; 
but  as  the  expression  of  a  sincere  conviction  founded  on  exten- 
sive observation  and  reading,  it  seems  to  me  entitled  to  atten- 
tion, respect,  and  refutation,  by  those  competent  to  meet  the 
arguments  presented  with  otiier  arguments,  and  not  with  mere 
contradiction.  F.  B.  SANBORN. 

Springfield,  Aug.  13, 1869. 


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